Syracuse University
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Syracuse University Honors Program Capstone
Projects
Syracuse University Honors Program Capstone
Projects
Spring 5-2016
Escape from Amherst: Emily Dickinson’s Life of
Freedom
Maria Whitcomb
Follow this and additional works at: http://surface.syr.edu/honors_capstone
Part of the Theatre and Performance Studies Commons
Recommended Citation
Whitcomb, Maria, "Escape from Amherst: Emily Dickinson’s Life of Freedom" (2016). Syracuse University Honors Program Capstone
Projects. Paper 927.
This Honors Capstone Project is brought to you for free and open access by the Syracuse University Honors Program Capstone Projects at SURFACE.
It has been accepted for inclusion in Syracuse University Honors Program Capstone Projects by an authorized administrator of SURFACE. For more
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Escape from Amherst: Emily Dickinson’s Life of Freedom
A Capstone fulfilling crieteria for Honors in Vocal Performance
© (Maria Whitcomb – April 24, 2016)
Renée Crown University Honors College
Class of 2016
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Abstract
Through Escape from Amherst: Emily Dickinson’s Life of Freedom, I endeavored to create an
immersive art song recital experience through which I explored the character of Emily
Dickinson, hopefully rendering her ambiguous, iconic character somewhat more comprehensive
to modern day audiences. Enclosed in the following chapters, please find the formal research I
performed in examining Emily Dickinson’s character, an explanation of my own artistic journey,
the program that I distributed to audiences during the concert (containing analyses of the Emily
Dickinson texts that I performed), stage directions illustrating actor/singer intention and
movement onstage, and lastly an explanation of my inspiration for the visual components of set
and props that appeared onstage during the concert event. An audio recording of the concert will
also be made available to the committee through the link below, as well as an appendix at the
conclusion of this work.
https://soundcloud.com/maria-whitcomb/sets
Also included is a video recording, of slightly lesser quality than the audio recording, but this
submission will suffice for the committee to discern that the Escape from Amherst project
culminated in a live performance, with dramatic and visual as well as musical components.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j_5gcdQJbc&list=PLpd2jlYrF1JZ7D5bGWYiUIvSvzgr7ecG1
If necessary please use the following login information to view all videos:
Email:mariakwhit@gmail.com
Password: Mus$c101
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Executive Summary
The poetry of Emily Dickinson has both inspired and mystified audiences for
generations. Her short, insightful poems are at once aphoristic, and clouded with metaphor,
providing little windows into a world filled with beauty, rebellion, love and freedom. Though her
uses of vocabulary and wording are unconventional – careful reading always yields beneath the
broken lines and dashes the clarity of simple, pure, human emotion. Audiences everywhere are
willing wear to a smile of curious patience while reading Dickinson, and to accept that the poetry
of this American treasure has many layers. However, few are willing to extend that same
courtesy to Dickinson herself.
A beautiful, complicated mind held the brilliance behind these poems that inspired
countless works of art- paintings, poems, novels, plays, films and songs; but as years wear on
and the often conjecture-filled work of biographers goes unread on library shelves, the essence of
who Emily really was has retreated into her little bedroom in Amherst, Massachusetts. Educators
simplify her into a “reclusive poet” known for her “unusual use of form and syntax” (Emily
Dickinson Biography.com (n.d.)) and biographers romanticize her as a tragic would-be artist,
stifled by the rigid societal conventions of 1800s New England. To adopt either of these opinions
is to diminish one of America’s greatest poets to an unbearably boring cliché.
My purpose in developing the Escape from Amherst project has been to create an indepth character study of Emily Dickinson, and become empowered to delve deeper into every
character I will ever create onstage as a performer. I could have chosen straight theater as my
medium, for there are many beautiful plays such as William Luce’s The Belle of Amherst or
Chris Cragin-Day’s Emily: An Amethyst Remembrance, but as a vocal performance major, it
made more sense artistically for me to use music to tell Emily’s story- and express the final
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product as a staged art song recital.
Art song is known as the practice of setting pre-existing poetry to music, and its
performance is essential to the education of every young singer. Because it is in this medium that
most young artists learn proper technique and how to gain control of their voice and develop
musical artistry through their own unique instrument, recital music is often viewed as an art form
that is purely musical or technical, like an instrumental etude. In fact, art song itself has been
treated much lie Emily’s poetry- legendary songs and voices mystify and delight, but not many
audience members, or even young performers, seem willing to go deeper. However, the best
displays of this art form showcase artists with the dramatic integrity of any lauded stage actor.
The human nature of the poetry-especially Emily’s poetry demands that the human, dramatic
element be visceral and intact.
As someone who has had more training as a musician than as an actor, I grew insecure
when I realized the kind of acting chops t it would take to pull off a program of this kind.
However, it was last summer when I traveled to Los Angeles to attend for a prestigious
auditioned art song intensive entitled SongFest, hosted at Los Angeles’ esteemed Colburn
School, that I realized that the tools I needed laid in my own imagination- a purer understanding
of my texts that lent intention to every phrase.
I had only imagined that I would lucky enough to achieve fly–on- the-wall- status at
SongFest, the level of musicianship of my fellow students, as well as the fame of many of the
faculty members, including Jake Heggie, one America’s most popular composers was
overwhelming at times. However, faculty and peers alike were generous with their time and
assistance, passionate about developing new programs and having new music heard. I genuinely
thought no one would care that much about my small venture, but Mr. Heggie spent a half hour
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with me talking about my project, and sent me a PDF of five as-yet-unpublished songs to use on
my program. I also got the wonderful opportunity to profit from his critique of my own
performance of his works in a master class.
SongFest set me free with regards to this project in every way imaginable. Not only did I
hear first-rate performances of the Dickinson text settings of Jake Heggie, Aaron Copland, and
Lori Laitman, that I would later become inspired to perform, but I also improved my approach to
performance by participating in coursework on poetry analysis in vocal performance. During this
class, our group of young singers worked on dividing our poems into smaller fragments that we
could endow with different emotional intentions, thereby enhancing our performance’s
believability and our audience’s interest. Every different stanza or line of the poem inspired a
different emotion, a different action, a different story, and we used these personal narratives to
guide our musical and physical actions onstage. We all chose English language songs and texts
to work with, and of course I chose works by Dickinson, as did many of my other classmates.
Her poems were harder to break apart because most of them were small and short, but in doing
this activity, we discovered emotional depth in the poetry that we had never found before.
The concert that celebrated the conclusion of our poetry analysis class was by far my
favorite event of the program. We spoke our poems before we sang them, as if they were straight
pieces of theater, and our voices were made all the more powerful. Our movements were staged
as we sang, and it was in this careful dramatic choreography that I conceptualized the approach I
would take with every song in the Dickinson recital, and indeed every song that I will ever
perform in the future.
When I left SongFest, the process began of crafting an original recital program began.
After combing through the selections I had fallen in love with at the SongFest, as well as the vast
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expanse of Dickinson settings by American composers (these are hundreds of songs, for indeed
setting Dickinson is practically a rite of passage for American composers of vocal music) I
settled on select works of Jake Heggie, Aaron Copland, and Lori Laitman breaking apart original
sets of poems that these composers grouped together to craft sets of Emily’s poetry that I thought
best represented four strong aspects of her remarkable character. I did this not in the intent of
diminishing the original vision of these composers, but rather marrying the intentions of them,
Emily, and myself more perfectly.
For me, these aspects of character were a keen eye for detail, manifested in a heightened
awareness of the natural world, a willingness to question and reject societal norms, a tendency to
create strong emotional attachments with others, and a strong sense of self. Though Emily stated
during her lifetime that her poems were not autobiographical, and that first person tense often
used in her poems was meant to be interpreted in a ubiquitous manner, I challenged that for an
artist, it is inevitable that a bit of his/her own character will seep into a poem, painting, or song of
their creation regardless of absence of a professed personal testimony.
My work involved careful examination of her biography as well as the texts and music of
my chosen American composers. The composers did not necessarily take Dickinson’s biography
or personality into account as they crafted their songs, but as I had predicted, the aforementioned
character traits of Emily shone through this music for me. The fortitude and complexity of
Emily’s character is articulated in her texts, and in art song, the intentions of the poet and
composer exist side by side in equal strength, regardless of whether or not they are always in
concurrence. Therefore, even today, Emily’s voice is still heard loud and clear through the
inspired works created by artists today.
By expressing Emily’s powers of observation, quiet insurrection, peerless heart, and
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mental fortitude and clarity, I hoped to not only slough off the unimaginative characterizations of
recluse and caged bird that have plagued the poet for generations, but to encourage audiences to
see the relationship between Emily and the generations of artists she inspired posthumously.
The observations I made in my studies of Emily’s biography as well as my own
interpretations of Emily’s texts also made for an interesting approach to my program notes- a
physical guide given to the audience to enhance their understanding of the performance. I placed
my interpretations of Dickinson’s poetry alongside her luminous texts, and added the
explanations of her character that were certain to communicate the purpose of the Escape from
Amherst project to my audience. A copy of this program is included in the projects’ appendix.
In working on the staged elements of the Escape from Amherst Project, I also decided
that since her bedroom was the chief place in Emily’s world where she felt the most able to be
herself, no picture of Emily’s character would be complete unless it were rendered in her home
environment. Thus, I took it upon myself to physically recreate Emily’s pre-Victorian era
bedroom onstage as a visual component of my recital. For inspiration, I traveled to Amherst,
Massachusetts, so I could visit the carefully preserved and restored Homestead and Evergreens,
the two remaining residences of the Dickinson estate today. I also visited Houghton Library at
Harvard University, another important destination for Dickinson scholars that contained many
relics of Dickinson past, including treasured family heirlooms, her piano, a wonderful collection
of books from her library, and her exceptional herbarium- detailed drawings and collections of
plants that were almost scientific in nature.
The experience of holding objects that belonged to Emily, walking where she walked,
and standing in the bedroom where in the 1850s, she underwent her most prolific period of
writing- was invaluable to my artistic process. I discovered that her room was not the place of
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safety and colorless seclusion that I had always imagined it to be, but rather a safe haven filled
with light color, and imagination-one could feel energy pulsing through the walls. Looking
through her window at the serene backyard, I imagined this space as a one where Emily would
have been glad to while away her years. In fact, Emily once said of locking herself away in her
room: “It’s just a turn, and freedom[!]” (“Restoration of Emily Dickinson’s Bedroom”- Emily
Dickinson site).
When I arrived back to Syracuse, I teamed up with my parents, a carpenter and a middle
school teacher to craft a backdrop of 1850s Amherst, painted onto large 4’X7’ plywood panels.
We used these as the scenery for our set, and added props of a desk, chairs, pens, paper, books,
and even an inkwell to create a more realistic space. In order not to hinder any communication
between musicians during the program, the piano was also fully incorporated into the set.
Following my designs, my dad also crafted a movable window so that I could repeatedly
change Emily’s perspectives during the performance- the points at which her imagination
released her into the world, it could be turned, and “opened”. At other points, she stood behind it,
looking through the glass. To further enhance the visual experience, I also elected to appear
onstage in the likeness of Emily Dickinson, clad in her typical white housedress as opposed to
traditional recital garb.
Escape from Amherst: Emily Dickinson’s Life of Freedom was an enlightening artistic
experience for me. It showed me all the necessary steps involved with creating a character of
dramatic clarity and honesty, and although I truly believe that the project should have required
more time to develop profound artistry, it is a project that I will use for the rest of my life as a
performer. I chose to include a comprehensive character study of Emily Dickinson, as well as an
essay reflecting on the process in this folio. In the appendixes, there is enclosed the program with
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poetry analyses, an explanation of the visual components of the staging, and a full script with
stage directions.
I hope that my project will encourage other singers to realize that they are few rules in the
realm of art song. Singers are given this big, beautiful catalog of centuries-old of music to learn,
and somehow the heart behind it has gotten lost in translation for students who grip the piano in
fear, standing in front of jurors for college evaluations. I hope that young singers will push what
can be done dramatically and physically with their art form to the brink of what is traditional or
acceptable, and then pull back in the quest to create a perfectly balanced delivery and product.
That is what continues to be my journey as an artist- and the Escape from Amherst project has
been integral to my development as a performer.
Works Cited (For quotations)
“Emily Dickinson” Boigraphy.com (n.d.) Retrieved September 21st, 2015
Restoration of Emily Dickinson's Bedroom. (2009). Retrieved July 1, 2015, from
https://www.emilydickinsonmuseum.org/node/370
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Table of Contents
Abstract……………………………………….……………….………….. iii
Executive Summary………………………….……………….………….. iv
Acknowledgements (Optional)……………………………………………xii
Advice to Future Honors Students (Optional)………………………….. xiv
Component 1: Emily Dickinson- a Character Analysis………………… 1
Component 2: Artist Reflection…………………………………..……… 31
Component 3: Concert Program (Distributed to Audience)………....… 50
Component 4: Stage Directions/Script…………………………………… 71
Component 5: Explanation of Onstage Visual Presentation………….… 81
Bibliography.……………………………………………………………… 85
Appendix…………………………………………………………………….86
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Acknowledgements (Optional)
Many deserve extensive thanks for their help in crafting the Escape from Amherst project.
This was a labor of love, but also a time of intense introspection and at times doubt. As an artist,
this was the first time that I have ever attempted to curate a project of this scope, and I have
realized that I can never glean too much input from the wonderful network of assistance that I
have amassed at Syracuse University.
To Dr. Kathleen Roland-Silverstein, my fearless, candid, and patient advisor: Thank you
for being so generous with your time even while you were abroad in Oxford, and for consistently
giving me the kind of feedback I deserve as an artist with a desire to improve. In the same vein, I
owe a tremendous debt of gratitude to Professor Janet Brown, my voice teacher and capstone
reader, and Professor Kathleen Haddock. Thank you for assisting me in bringing this ambitious
repertoire to the stage, and for the work you have done throughout my undergraduate years to
bring my vocal technique and musicianship to the next level. Thanks are also in order for Dr.
John Warren and Dr. Joeseph Downing, who at separate intervals both stepped in to evaluate the
performance of the Escape from Amherst Concert component at different stages in its
development. Michelle Taylor, the Director of Operations for the Setnor School of Music, was
also extremely generous in granting me access to the auditorium for a rehearsal space, and
allowing me to store my scenery near the performance venue.
It is essential to recognize the musicial and logistical contributions of pianist Sabine
Krantz, my musical and performance partner in every respect. Truly, no better word exists for
this tremendous collaborator and artist. I learn something new from her whenever we play
together, and I can only hope for more in the future. Thank you for consistently going above and
beyond, performing some of the most demanding music in the art song repertoire, coming in for
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extra rehearsals, waiting patiently for payments, and even driving me back home after late night
rehearsals.
The incredible faculty at the Colburn School’s SongFest program also contributed greatly
to my artistic development while the project was still in its conceptualization stages. Edwin
Cahill revolutionized the way I analyze the combination of texts and music in performance, and
for that I am endlessly grateful. I also owe tremendous gratitude to Jake Heggie, who granted me
access to three songs on the final concert program that are yet to be published, and created a safe
space to grow as an artist in masterclass. It takes a lot to be brave onstage, and I am only just
beginning to grasp that concept.
The team at the Renée Crown University Honors Department has also been a tremendous
asset to me. I was tremendously thankful to have been awarded a Crown-Wise Marcus Award,
and I thank Professor Stephen Kuusisto, as well as the entire award committee for believing me
worthy of such an honor. Thanks are also in order for Karen Hall, who has consistently tolerated
me popping into her office to ask questions, and Kate Hanson, who has constantly assured me
that I am not as behind as I think I am. I am also grateful to Samir Malovic, who helped me sort
out the logistics in obtaining my Crown-Wise award.
Last, I need to thank my parents for their tremendous and endless support throughout my
life and throughout this project. To my father, Ben Whitcomb, thank you for helping us paint,
and somehow building a set for me out wood and my crazy ideas. You are the only dad I know
who built his daughter a window on wheels. My mother, Lisa Whitcomb, read me poetry from a
very young age, and it is likely that I never would have discovered Emily Dickinson without her.
From paying for my tutition for SongFest to painting sets to setting up a post-concert reception,
she has expressed her belief in my craft in many ways. I know I will always have your love.
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Advice to Future Honors Students
The sky is the limit with your capstone project, and despite the doubts and frustrations
that you will encounter in crafting this work, I hope that you never lose sight of the fact that this
is your first chance to do something big. It is a work that you may fall back on or utilize
throughout your life, so make it something that you care about and put effort into. This is about
way more than an extra line of writing on your diploma. Completing a capstone is about
expanding your professional/artistic/philosophical worldview. This project will change the way
you think, and if you complete it, you will feel equipped to take on any real-world obstacle.
Plan your time, and start ahead. I truly began this process a year ago, and in all honesty, I
wish I had had another six months. Find an advisor who will be supportive and nurturing, who is
as excited about your project as you are. In the same vein, choose an advisor who cares enough
about you as a professional to not sugarcoat their idea of the quality of your work. Although it
can be difficult, to obtain success in your field, candor is the best medicine. Ask for input and
advice from a variety of people, and then ask again. Do not be too afraid or arrogant to seek the
counsel of others, for out of all the people whose offices I have walked into on this campus, I
have never found an instructor who was unwilling to help me.
You are stronger and smarter than you know, with a tremendous work ethic and a
relentless capacity for creativity. Ready yourself for the gifts that you will give to the
professional world by completing a project that you can be proud of. You are ready.
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1
Emily Dickinson: A Character Analysis
An artist’s temperament is as unique as his or her aesthetic, and often as iconic. It is
widely acknowledged that the task of creating art is performed by those with complex
personalities who exhibit a number of predispositions in character. Often they are intensely
humanistic, noble to a fault, or they harbor deep tendencies towards depression and
introspection. Even a finely tuned sense of humor can elevate an artist’s work from the ordinary
to the legendary. One could argue that if an artist is not a truly interesting or complex person on
the inside, their creations may not be that interesting. Perhaps, unless created by a man or woman
with an appropriate number of bizarre personality traits, works will fail to pass into the vault
wherein humankind places the esteemed works of art known as “classics”.
Ironically, even though these complexities in personality are what elevate artist’s work to
immortality, posthumously, art consumers (students, readers, audience members – those who
only glimpse the surface of an artist’s world) are often willing to reduce their perceptions of an
artist’s character to a single (often very general) personality trait. Instead of considering the
myriad of life experiences that shaped an artist’s catalogue of work, certain audiences are only
willing to classify them based on only one greatest work, or a single life event. There is a direct
correlation between vernacular recognition of a work of art, and reduction in artist personality
perception.
Biographers, researchers, and historians have largely exempted themselves from this
gross misconduct, but common public ignorance has led many people to reduce great artists to
clichés and parodies. For many, Whitman’s image will shine for posterity with the stoic, sunny
nobility of his poem “I Hear America Singing”, despite the fact that many of his peers did not
view his dangerous and radical political views in this light. Certain passages in Walden make it
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difficult to remember that Thoreau possessed a transcendentalist faith in humankind, rather than
the disillusioned outlook of a man tramping grumpily through the woods. It will always be
difficult to reconcile that Vincent van Gogh was able to see his beautiful, ethereal, calm
masterpiece The Starry Night in the window view from an asylum room.
Posthumously, artists often cease to exist as “real people” to the general public. Although
historical sites and museums devote themselves to rectifying these wrongs, they are working
within a limited geographic scope, and it is not everyone who will make a long trek to Camden,
Concord, Amherst, or even Amsterdam to discover the truth for themselves. Thus, the beautiful
and complex imperfections of these artists are often glossed over by public perception and the
passage of time, and they become classified as flat, colorless “legends”, “icons” or “myths”.
One artist who has been most egregiously wronged by this practice is Emily Dickinson,
the myth herself. Hers was a brilliant, complicated mind, filled with different ideas, emotions,
and opinions. All of these entities found their home in Emily’s mind and heart. She recognized
them, acknowledged them, and often found them a place in her poetry. Each one was of
miraculous clarity, for Emily was a woman who “seized on essentials”. (Taggard p. xiii ) Here,
the word “essentials” should not refer to views, realizations, and emotions that are merely black
and white – but the willingness to articulate and differentiate every shade of grey within one’s
personality. She was a being of uncommon strength in that she was able to pinpoint her virtues
and faults with equal exactness, and embrace them all as important parts of her character.
How then, has Emily Dickinson often been simplified into a “reclusive poet” known for
her “unusual use of form and syntax” (biography.com) or romanticized as a tragic would-be
artist, stifled by the rigid societal conventions of 1800s New England? To adopt either of these
opinions is to diminish the incredible character of Emily Dickinson to an unbearably boring
3
cliché.
The mistake of educators, students, select biographers (such as her biased niece, Martha
Dickinson Bianchi) and the general public is that they attempt to assign Emily an extreme
identity based on her external environment rather than her internal environment. The Amherst,
Massachusetts of the nineteenth century was a charming but conflicted land, where nature did its
best to coexist with booming industry, farmers and their wives gave out prizes for the best
livestock and preserves in town (in fact, Emily’s blackberry pie once garnered the second prize.)
For those who could afford it, the university and local private school turned out carefully
educated individuals who led modest, prudent lives in their shops or offices and then went home
to their families for relaxation.
The best characterization of Amherst’s upper class lay in Edward Dickinson, Emily’s
father, a lawyer and Massachusetts politician whose family lineage had birthed Amherst College
and practically the town itself. Emily described him mostly aptly with her solemn admission that
“He never played.” (Sewall, p. 64) and he seemed to wear the yoke of the town’s stern lawyer
proudly, for he was a man who saw nobility in hard work and a degree of suffering. He rarely
gave into bouts of strong emotion or passion, and even in his “love letters” to his then-fiancée,
Emily Norcross Dickinson; the rhetoric was that of restrained practicality:
“Let us prepare for a life of rational happiness. I do not expect or wish for a life of pleasure. May we be happy and
useful and successful and each be an ornament in society and gain the respect and confidence of all with whom we
may be connected.”
(Taggard, p. 51)
The upper class men of Amherst would have perhaps been equated with the “clock
punchers” of the 1950’s era, and although many of these high-class women were collegeeducated, conscious beings, they would have seemed quite similar to the housewives of that era.
The Dickinson household had one maid, Maggie, as well as men who worked the grounds and
4
tended the chickens, but the ladies of the house (Emily’s mother, sister, and herself) were
expected to at least assist with the domestic tasks of cooking and cleaning. In fact, early in their
marriage, Emily’s formidable father, Edward Dickinson, gifted to his young wife a copy of the
then popular household guide, Lydia Maria Child’s The American Frugal Housewife, a text that
lauded these virtues (emilydickinsonmuseum.org). Emily’s mother must have employed these
practices in an exacting fashion, for in one letter, Emily characterized her mother as
“oppressively tidy.” (Taggard, p. 38)
When they were not at these tasks of cooking, cleaning, or relaxing through the noble
pursuits of art, embroidery, music, botany, reading or letter writing (nearly all pursuits that Emily
enjoyed) women of the time were expected to keep exhausting calendars of entertaining, and to
keep “calling hours” during which members of the community (mostly fellow housewives)
would drop by for conversation or other activities. In this regard, all women in the community
seemed to serve the purpose of keeping each other entertained, which was indeed a full time
occupation.
Today, a view of women as docile but sociable domestics paints a picture of a life of
isolation and deprivation. Had Emily Dickinson kowtowed to these societal practices; she might
have felt the rub of shackles. However, she enjoyed being home, and truly loved Amherst, her
father, and her siblings, her older brother, Austin, and her younger sister, Lavinia.
In her mostly accurate but somewhat romanticized biography The Life and Mind of Emily
Dickinson, Genevieve Taggard continually questions whether or not it was the power of Edward
Dickinson or the poet’s own lack of mettle that prevented Emily Dickinson from quitting
Amherst altogether, but the answer lies in an account of her returning home from her first
5
semester at the nearby Mount Holyoke Female Seminary. Emily never left Amherst simply
because she did not want to.
“We rode swiftly along & soon the Colleges and the spire of our venerable Meeting House, rose to my delighted
vision. Never did Amherst look more lovely to me & gratitude rose in my heart to God, for granting me such a safe
return.”
(Sewall, p. 59)
Emily Dickinson’s escape from the trials of society life lay in a rather à la carte lifestyle
that was left rather unhindered by familial input. She deigned not to take a part in the household
cleaning (perhaps the only domestic task that she truly abhorred) or to receive visitors. She chose
to participate more in the life she lived in her small sanctuary of a bedroom rather than the life
outside of it. When one enters Emily’s bedroom in the Dickinson homestead where she passed
many of the hours of her life, they are given the impression of a space where it would be pleasant
to while away the years.
Figures 1 and 2: Emily's Bedroom (Emily Dickinson Site)
The above figures display images of Emily Dickinson’s newly restored bedroom (as of
August 2015) at the original Dickinson Homestead in Amherst, Massachusetts, which has since
become the Emily Dickinson Museum. Down to the flowered wallpaper and original furniture
the room is a historically accurate reproduction of a room filled with calm and joy. It is tidy and
cozy yet airy, filled with natural light. And, although the picture does not show it through the
gauze of the curtains, a beautiful view of what would been nineteenth century Amherst, a city
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nestled in the Berkshire mountains of Massachusetts that was just beginning to establish itself in
the scene of New England commerce. Emily so loved this room, that her niece, Martha
Dickinson Bianchi, described a conversation regarding the space with her aunt in the following
manner:
“She would stand looking down, one hand raised, thumb and forefinger closed on an imaginary key, and say, with a
quick turn of her wrist, “It’s just a turn –and freedom, Matty!””
(emilydickinsonmuseum.org)
That room was her creative haven, her gateway to the world, and in this manner not only
was the living Emily Dickinson ill-suited for the image of lackluster prisoner attributed to her by
legend –makers today, but it becomes clear that Emily’s life was one of freedom rather than
captivity. To see the world through the lens of her poetry and her room was a direct and clear
choice. The outside world was there for her to observe, document, and paint with her words, for
Emily was an exceptionally perceptive human, acutely aware of herself and her surroundings.
Emily never escaped Amherst physically, for her retreat was inwards. She sought refuge
from the constraints of society within her home, her room, and above all, herself, for she was a
being whose tempests she could brave and whose questions she could answer. Her intense
perspicacity led her to the ways in which she sought and attained a more freedom-filled lifestyle
than many women of nineteenth century of New England, most of whom effectively were “…at
once stimulated and limited by a social environment which is [was] serious, virtuous, and
deficient of amusement.” (Taggard, p. 220)
Her life of observation led her to achieve freedom through an intense and sympathetic
connection to nature, a quiet but almost rebellious rejection of many of the human practices of
war and religion, intense feelings of connection and love fostered with many of her friends and
family, and lastly a strong and grounded sense of who she was as a person.
Mrs. Emily Norcross Dickinson, an active gardener, cultivated a love of nature in her
7
children, and this most likely built the foundation for Emily’s strong connection with the natural
world. Her mother was renowned for her figs, and Emily surely inherited this green thumb,
exhibiting the patience necessary for growing flowers as a child.
Furthermore, Edward Dickinson, who was a strict and never indulgent man, took an
opportunity to forget himself where matters of his daughter’s love of flowers were concerned.
Not only was the Dickinson homestead where Emily resided for the majority of her life (from
1855 to her death in 1886) equipped with rolling grounds that housed some of the community’s
loveliest gardens, but upon their arrival, Edward fashioned her a modest, but beautiful
conservatory attached to the side of their house, an expression of pure love for his favorite child.
Thus, Emily spent many days of her life crouched behind the garden hedge, planting, or in
winter, tending to the flowers in her conservatory.
She grew all manner of flowers – New England natives, tropical flowers, and even herbs
in this sweet glass haven, and, to her delight, all of them flourished. These exotic bursts of color
served as her ticket to foreign lands, and she jubilated “I have but to cross the floor to stand in
the Spice Isles.” (emilydickinsonmuseum.org) Her finer abilities to sense subtle changes in the
wind, and to consider the activities of bees and butterflies in relation to her flowers, had given
Emily the skill to create flowers so brilliant that they served as a vehicle for her imagination –
another way in which she obtained freedom.
Furthermore, plant life served as an important part of Emily’s education. While attending
the local Amherst Academy (an institution founded in part by the Dickinson family) and shortly
after completing a year at Mount Holyoke Female Seminary, Emily studied a variety of
engrossing subjects, including philosophy, Latin, geology and chemistry. Although she was seen
as a bright and inquisitive student in all of her classes, after so many years of dirt under her
8
fingernails, it is unsurprising that she excelled particularly in botany.
The leading text of the day on the subject of botany, Ms. Almira H. Lincoln’s Familiar
Lectures on Botany was also incredibly influential in further igniting Emily’s interest in the plant
world. Botany was a popular subject, especially for young ladies, as it catered to their finer
sensibilities in a manner that smelly animal dissection or the mathematical rigors of physics did
not. Encouraged by Lincoln’s text, like many well-bred, educated young women of her day,
Emily joined in the dainty practice of keeping an herbarium, a book containing collections of
carefully dried plants, organized and carefully labeled with their scientific Latin nomenclature as
well as with significant scientific details as to their use or history in the realm of medicine.
However, Emily had an attachment to her herbarium that seems unique. Emily kept her
herbarium among her most prized possessions throughout her life. Even today, the intricacy and
care that is clearly exhibited in its assembly is a source of wonder. Not only are Emily’s senses
of detail and powers of observation abundantly clear here, but also her sympathetic view of
nature is brought to light. Emily’s careful preservation shows that she cherished these flowers as
one would a human life.
Figure 3: Emily Dickinson’s Herbarium - Harvard University Gazette
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If anything, Emily’s strong perception of the natural world gave her a unique empathy
for all aspects of this planet. Thus in her poetry, she would adopt extensive metaphors, and
attribute very human characteristics to non-human entities, often animals, exhibited in poems
such as “Fame is a bee-” She was also able to see distinct similarities between occurrences in
human nature, and events in the natural world, such as storms or the changing seasons. This is
clearly exhibited in texts such as “There came a Wind like a Bugle.”
This nearly religious reverence for the natural world might have been another piece of
influence garnered from Familiar Lectures on Botany. In this text, the identification of plants
was not only extolled as an invaluable study for furthering the practices of sensible agriculture
and commerce, but was elevated to a strangely, almost fervent, doctrine of theology. For the
presence of God in science was a widely accepted principle in nineteenth century public
education. In the excerpt below, Lincoln expands upon this principle of the subject:
“The study of Botany naturally leads to greater love and reverence for the Deity. It may not always produce this
effect […] but those who feel in their hearts a love to God, and who see in the natural world the workings of His
power can look abroad, and, adopting the language of a Christian poet, exclaim,
“My Father made them all.””
(Lincoln, p.12)
Emily latched on to this gentle indoctrination, but in an unexpected manner. She
possessed a unique, spiritual view of the realm of nature, and believed that the small and
beautifully intricate details of the natural world, such as a butterfly’s wing or a flower’s stamen,
were all expressions of God’s glory. It also stands to reason that with this view of natural
splendor around her, Emily began to see God’s sky as the ceiling of her chapel, and began to
rejection many of the standard mores of institutionalized religion, a practice that could have
proved dangerous to someone who lived a less quiet and sheltered life.
Emily was born in 1826, when Christian revivalism was sweeping the country. From
Calvinists to Evangelists to Methodists and the Baptists all Protestant sects took advantage of a
10
turbulently changing America to spread their gospel. As tensions grew between Northern and
Southern states and the frontier expanded via the railroad, people grew more anxious for a force
of permanence in their lives. For some, they found it in a newfound relationship with the Lord.
This revivalist energy spanned decades, and even the steadfast Edward Dickinson succumbed to
religious conversion during an 1850 sermon in Amherst. Emily, however, never swayed in her
resolve, and refused to adhere to this school of thought.
Emily’s first fight against the religious fervor of nineteenth century New England life
began with her time at Mount Holyoke Female Seminary. During her first and only year at this
venerable institution, Emily and her fellow students were often subjected to bouts of religious
oration, after which they would be asked to profess their faith. After the girls expressed their
thoughts, they would be divided into three groups. Those who committed themselves entirely to
God and the church were considered as “professed”. Those who had made progress were
considered to be “with hope” and those who refused to agree to the teachings were subsequently
labeled “without hope”.
“Dickinson was among eighty without hope when she entered and was among twenty-nine who remained so by the
end of the year. She wrote her friend Abiah Root, “There is a great deal of religious interest here and many are
flocking to the ark of safety. I have not yet given up to the claims of Christ, but trust I am not entirely thoughtless on
so important and serious a subject.”
(emilydickinsonmuseum.org)
Indeed, Emily’s inability to profess did not at all indicate spiritual inferiority on her part.
Emily simply saw her relationship with God as that of an open dialogue, rather than of blind
servitude. Emily adored and devoured the King James Bible that her father gave her at age
thirteen. In a rather à la carte fashion, she seemed to subscribe to the idea of glorying in God’s
creation and love rather than accepting doctrines of sacrifice for his benefit. In this manner, She
accepted and worshipped God on her own terms, preferring to “keep the Sabbath staying at
home” (Dickinson catalogue #236) as opposed to joining a congregation. In this regard, Emily
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stated, “I stand alone in rebellion.” (Sewall p. 66) She questioned God on her own terms, about
His love for the world, and His love for herself, a not-so-meek presence before Him.
Emily was heavily invested in her “…personal theology, in which the World and Man
and God were all but coordinate” (Sewall, p. 67) In her conversations with Him, exhibited in
many of her poems, she was frank, bold and cheeky, and innocently inquisitive. However, in
these discourses she was also often filled with sadness, confusion, and anger. Even as it existed
all around her throughout her life, each death of a family member or friend caused devastating
depression.
Her first experience with death occurred in 1846, when her mentor, friend, (and often
posited potential love interest,) Leonard Humphrey, died in the street from a brain hemorrhage.
This event left her with the words “…when the un-reconciled spirit has nothing left but God, that
spirit is lone indeed.” (Taggard p. 72). Her last loss, the death of her father, devastated her in the
greatest fashion.
Though her relationship with her father was filled with complexity, Edward Dickinson
was a giant in her life, and the love and awe she bore for him was incredible. For her, despite her
joyfully cheeky admissions of his sternness and fits of temper in her letter (She jokingly refers to
him as “Vesuvius” in a particularly mischievous letter to her brother (Sewall, p.62) her father
was a mortal manifestation of God himself. His authority was upheld in her mind even as it was
defied by the small rebellious acts of reading romantic novels or putting a chipped plate before
him at suppertime.
Although the following observation is indeed mere speculation, considering that Emily
Dickinson claimed her poetry was non-autobiographical, the relationship between God, Edward
Dickinson, and herself seems inherently present in many of her religious poems. In these, Emily
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places herself in the role of a child, and God in the role of a parent, perhaps her father as well as
the father. The last stanza from the seventieth poem in her catalog, “Arcturus is his other name-”
offers an interesting example of this phenomenon.
I hope the Father in the skies
Will lift his little girl—
Old fashioned—naught—everything—
Over the stile of "Pearl."
(Taggard, p. 285)
Edward Dickinson’s own approach to religious authority was perhaps an influence on the
young Emily. Although Edward Dickinson led an upright, societally acceptable lifestyle, a
relationship with the church was glaringly absent from his life. Although the aforementioned
religious revival swept New England for a grand part of his life, Edward Dickinson’s steadfast
pride and established manner of being prevented him from making an honest commitment to
God until he was nearly fifty years old.
“ “When Hon. E.D. of Amherst was converted-who had been long under conviction-His pastor said to him in his
study-“You want to come to Christ as a lawyer-but you must come to him as a poor sinner- get down on your knees
and let me pray for you, & then pray for yourself.” It was not easy for Dickinsons to get down on their knees and
pray before others-or to be demonstrative even before God.”
(Sewall, p. 66)
Emily was the only member of her family who did not give into religious conversion.
Perhaps the biggest reason was because she did not want to imagine an entity that was capable of
besting even the mighty Edward Dickinson. Perhaps her consistent questioning of God may
serve only as a reflection for a degree of rebellion towards all authority that surrounded her.
The Civil War also brought another picture of death into the life of Emily Dickinson.
Freedom indeed from her Amherst life was accomplished through contemplation of this war, for
it was hard for all members of the community to focus on their careful lives of social calls and
preserve-making whilst local boys marched off to fight for the Union cause. However, this
welcome seclusion for her may have also instilled a very different fear. Following the battle of
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Gettysburg, every small Northern town held their breath, paralyzed by the fear that their quaint
life would be the next to be disturbed. As a key strategic state containing the port and major trade
and manufacturing center of Boston, the fear felt by Massachusetts was particularly real.
Although many of the men from Emily’s upper crust Amherst society (including her
brother Austin) paid for substitutes to fight for them in the war, those who did choose to wield
the bayonet were missed, and as they fell, their names were glorified in the Springfield
Republican. The whole town wept at the death of Frazar Stearns, the son of the then president of
Amherst College. As Emily watched the young men who had apprenticed in her father’s law
office slowly disappear, it became apparent that God’s will was not always just. This part of
American history never failed to stir the anger of the quiet Emily, who nevertheless fingered her
beloved Bible and studied it at home with her family.
Concerning these issues of her heart, while Emily Dickinson outwardly played the part of
dutiful child of God, she stoked radical fires in her soul. Anger was the emotion that induced
Emily’s most prolific writing period, coinciding exactly with 1864, the bloodiest year of the
Civil War, marred by General William Tecumesh Sherman’s “March to the Sea.” In this
manner, Emily’s poems are found not only to defy many conventions of modern poetry in their
construction, but also to be full of rebellious fire. Emily lived through these poems and died
through them as she wrote; her pen was her bayonet, and her ink the blood she spilled. As
soldiers afar killed with machine-like accuracy, she asked even the most taboo questions of her
day with an equally steady hand. Her anger at the atrocities of the Civil War freed her verse, and
freed her from Amherst life.
“The war upset the ideas by which she lived, it tilted life from a level of understanding to an oblique angle and so
seesawed issues which had seemed in equilibrium that she found herself writing without leave, without
premeditation, forced to put things down while they still burned…”
(Taggard, pp. 7-8)
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However, the bravery and audacity that freed Emily mentally and emotionally, allowing
her to question God regularly was not born only of her indefatigable spirit, but was also a result
of the intensity with which she cherished all in her life. She adored her family and friends
wholly, holding some in almost holy esteem, and kept a religious practice of writing letters. All
of them are signed with passionate openings and closings, including “Treasured (Name)”,
“Darling (Name)”, “Lovingly”, “Your Dearest Friend”, “Your Sister”, or as a short remark,
“Take!” No matter how long Emily had known a person for, what role they had in her life, or
when she had last seen them, the tomes of letters she left behind give indication of a mind with a
scrupulous memory for details and dates, never missing a chance to commemorate a birthday,
anniversary, or death that impacted one of her correspondents. She loved openly and freely, and
while she never showed her poetry to her mother, father, or Lavinia some of these friends were
awarded poems, among them Samuel Bowles, Thomas Wentworth Higginson, and her sister-inlaw, Susan “Sue” Huntington Gilbert Dickinson.
The relationship that existed between Emily and Sue was surely one of the strangest in
her life; it remains among the most significant to the poet. The tone of their letters is consistently
desperately and emotional, but also marked by the cool calm of intellect that allowed these two
women to consistently exchange ideas and books and that allowed Emily to seek Susan’s critical
input on what would come to be many of her most famous poems, including “Sleep is supposed
to be” (Catalog #13) and “A Narrow fellow in the Grass” (Catalog # 24), and “Safe in their
Alabaster Chambers” (Catalog #216).
They met as schoolgirls during a summer term at Amherst Academy, thus Emily knew
Sue even before Austin began to court her. When the two finally married, Emily was overjoyed
to have been given one of her dearest friends as a sister. However, a life of unpredictable
15
conflicts also rose ahead of them, as Sue navigated Amherst’s complicated social world and
juggled her duties to her husband and children. As close as they were, it was sometimes difficult
for these two women to read the other’s actions. At times, when Sue was too overwhelmed to
write, Emily might have seen it as neglect, or conversely, Sue, an authoritative figure who
enjoyed her freedom and social lifestyle, might have felt tied down by Emily’s emotional
devotion.
Sue and Emily were both complicated personalities, but despite longs periods of
estrangement (up to two years at a time) over the course of their nearly lifelong correspondence,
it seems that the sister-in-laws made an effort to work at their relationship. Neither was a model
of feminine perfection, considering Sue’s will was sometimes subject to her rather unpredictable
temper, and Emily’s nearly spiritual nature of attachment to her friends might have been too
familiar for Sue, however, for most of their lives, the women drew on this friendship of decades
as the root of their interactions with each other.
Emily said it best in a note to Sue written in 1885, wherein she stated: “The tie between
us is very fine, but a Hair never dissolves.” Thus, despite their bouts of disagreement, the two
remained somewhat close until the death of Gilbert Dickinson, Austin and Sue’s youngest child,
in 1883. This blow proved to be too great for the family to recover from, and Emily died
somewhat un-reconciled to her sister-in-law in 1886.
Emily was doubtless capable of great powers of forgiveness to thrive in the tempestuous
relationship like the one she shared with Sue. Perhaps Emily somehow intrinsically knew, with
an extraordinary empathy, far ahead of her time, that sometimes the action of love does not
constitute consistent, great acts, but sporadic little actions that make the world more secure for
another being, one moment at a time. Perhaps she was able to deal with Sue by learning to lean
16
in when her sister-in-law needed her, and to pull away when she did not.
This understanding capacity in love must have given great buoyancy to Emily’s life, and
this may have been one of her greatest sources of freedom. It is true that Emily garnered a
reputation for being a loner through her reluctance to receive company in her later years.
However, the vision of a cold, withdrawn, disassociated Emily that the cliché of “the myth”
perpetuates does not seem to equate with the character that has been presented above. Though
Emily’s worldview may have been quite small, her capacity for love and kindness proved to be
enormous. One of Emily’s defining traits was a strong, passionate, even romantic heart that was
prone to quick, sometimes unfounded attachment.
The Dickinsons were not an overtly emotional family. As mentioned before, her father
was an almighty, steadfast, rock of a man. Her mother was a quiet, nervous soul, mostly bound
by the will of her husband. Perhaps the lively flirt Lavinia and her brooding brother Austin had
some empathy for the depths of Emily’s emotions, but emotional expression was not something
widely encouraged in the Dickinson household. How, then, did a girl bred in a proper, staunch,
New England fashion manage to develop this emotional nature? Perhaps it began with her love
of romantic English Victorian literature, of George Eliot, Thomas Hardy, and, in particular, the
Brontë sisters.
As Emily made her way through Amherst Academy and Mount Holyoke Female
Seminary, she was given Jane Eyre by a young law student who worked in her father’s office. At
that time, a phenomenon that elders disparagingly quipped “Jane Eyre Fever” (Taggard, p. 88)
was sweeping New England, for the Brontë sisters had launched a new era of “psychological
fiction” (emilydickinsonmuseum.org) and re-romanticized the idea of a new brand of hero, the
heroine. It is quite possible that the biggest reason for the surge of popularity in these novels laid
17
in the idea that Emily, like many others young girls of her day, saw much of herself in the
protagonists of these classic novels.
The Brontë heroine is a peculiar breed in that rarely are they physically strong, Joan of
Arc archetypes that are so lauded in literature. These characters are not those who will be
brandishing swords to lead an army into battle. Rather, these women, the Jane Eyre, Lucy
Snowe, and even Catherine Earnshaw characters of literature are physically small, and often
described as “plain” or “peculiar” rather than beautiful. They are also given to strong bouts of
emotion, and are exceptionally quick-witted, or even manipulative, as in the case of Catherine
Earnshaw.
Little Emily Dickinson, with a countenance that was lively around friends even as it was
meek around strangers, who was barely five feet tall, with dark hair, and odd, sherry – colored
eyes fit nearly every criterion that the Brontë sisters sought to establish in their characters.
Although she doubtless had the facility to understand these novels were mere fiction, the picture
of these women, rising above their own shyness, fears, and weaknesses to become capable of
winning the triumphs of their hearts, and moving the souls of the mighty, stormy, otherwise
unreachable men like Mr. Rochester or Heathcliff, doubtlessly affected Emily greatly. Perhaps it
was outbursts like Jane Eyre’s indignant and bold admission of love to Mr. Rochester that gave
Emily the courage to free her strong emotions through writing – a habit that she began in
sincerity during these impressionable years of her life.
“Do you think I am an automaton? — a machine without feelings? and can bear to have my morsel of bread
snatched from my lips, and my drop of living water dashed from my cup? Do you think, because I am poor, obscure,
plain, and little, I am soulless and heartless? You think wrong! — I have as much soul as you — and full as much
heart! And if God had gifted me with some beauty and much wealth, I should have made it as hard for you to leave
me, as it is now for me to leave you. I am not talking to you now through the medium of custom, conventionalities,
nor even of mortal flesh: it is my spirit that addresses your spirit; just as if both had passed through the grave, and
we stood at God's feet, equal — as we are!”
(Brontë, Charlotte, p. 252)
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It is also possible that these novels colored greatly what Emily’s ideal of true love was.
The meaningful romantic relationships between Brontë characters are rarely born of solely
physical attraction or even a connection born of flirtation, appreciation of one’s sense of humor,
or a love of the other’s company. The connectedness of the characters in these stories is on the
level of the metaphysical. They are brought together because of an almost holy connection
through their souls that makes their union seem preordained by God. Not even the potent
emotions of grief, anger, or hatred can sever this bond, as proclaimed by Heathcliff upon
Catherine’s death in Wuthering Heights.
"Oh! you said you cared nothing for my sufferings! And I pray one prayer—I repeat it till my tongue stiffens—
Catherine Earnshaw, may you not rest as long as I am living; you said I killed you—haunt me, then! The murdered
do haunt their murderers, I believe. I know that ghosts have wandered on earth. Be with me always—take any
form—drive me mad! only do not leave me in this abyss, where I cannot find you! Oh, God! it is unutterable! I
cannot live without my life! I cannot live without my soul!"
(Brontë, Emily, p. 151)
With this ideal of love firmly ingrained in her head, why would the young Emily settle
for anything less in her own life? Could she settle for the practical courtship of the kind her
parents had? For “[o]bviously these two young people [Emily’s parents] looked upon marriage
less as romantic fulfillment than as a contractual agreement to fulfill together certain social and
religious aims and obligations.” (Sewall, p. 78) Clearly, this was not enough for Emily
Dickinson, and if she were to love in that way, she would not settle for anything less than a
spiritual connection to the one she was bound to love.
Perhaps it was this unrelenting view of the holiness of love that enabled her to suspend
judgment in the latter part of her life, especially concerning the relationships of her brother,
Austin. Emily was not only endlessly understanding, but fiercely loyal, and nowhere in her
writings and letters does Emily decry the torrid, thirteen-year affair between her married brother
Austin and the young Mabel Loomis Todd, a woman twenty years his junior, that rent their home
19
and the Amherst community in two.
The question of whether or not the affair affected Emily personally cannot be dismissed.
Mabel Todd was a frequent guest at the Dickinson homestead, where Emily lived. Mabel Todd
did not arrive in town until 1881, well into the period of Emily’s life in which she refused to see
visitors. However, there is no doubt that this young wife of an Amherst astronomy professor at
first brought life to Amherst, into the Dickinson homestead, and to the Evergreens, where Austin,
his wife Susan, and his children resided.
The community described her as bright, lively, and beautiful, and loved the vibrancy she
brought to Amherst’s quiet elegance. She was a talented writer, painter, and musician, who had
studied piano and voice at the New England Conservatory for two years. She latched on right
away to Amherst’s culture of calling hours and first befriended the Dickinsons by playing music
in their drawing rooms.
It would have been easy for Emily to feel betrayed when the affair between Austin and
Mabel first came to light. Mabel had been a friend and confidante to both Lavinia and Susan
upon her arrival into town, but the commencement of the affair exacerbated a rift that already
begun to grow over the hedge between the Dickinson Homestead and the Evergreens,
particularly the rift that continuously rose and fell in Emily and Sue’s complicated relationship.
Tensions arose particularly from how obvious it all was. It was not a question of whether
Austin and Mabel’s spouses knew of the affair. Secrets were difficult to hide in a town as small
as Amherst, and “The War Between the Houses” was an obvious topic of gossips. Rather, it was
the cross to bear of the wronged spouses as they learned to live with it. The frankness of the
situation lent itself to the necessity that all involved, especially the children of Austin and Sue, as
well as the elder Dickinson sisters, take clear sides. Either one would take up the cause of Susan,
20
or of Austin and Mabel.
Emily chose her brother, and when Austin was not hiding in Mabel’s arms from Susan’s
wrath, he sought refuge behind the walls of the Homestead, confiding in his sisters, with whom
he had always been very close. Emily’s inability to rise directly to Sue’s defense or to shame
Austin does not speak to weakness or indecision, but rather to a strong empathy for Austin’s
plight. Mabel and he had the connection of the soul that she had read about and believed in so
strongly, and likely she did not believe it her role to indict him for his acts of unfaithfulness.
One has to only read parts of Austin and Mabel’s correspondences to know that the
lovers themselves certainly saw their relationship in this light, for in one note, Mabel writes “Do
you not know that my soul is knit to yours by an Almighty hand? Through you I see God.”
(Sewall, p. 182) and for Austin, the torrents of love break forth in this fashion:
“That I have given myself to you, or that I have found myself yours! outside of all will or intent. That with you I
breathe a new air, move up in new realms, that by you I am enlarged, enriched, uplifted. That I thank God for you
every hour. That I find in you everything most beautiful, most dear, most rare, and in you the promptest response to
every subtlest feeling and movement of my nature- or do we not rather move toward each other by a common
impulse! and in perfect unison! No words can express, dearie, the depth and strength of my love for you, its
sacredness, its holiness.”
(Sewall, p. 183)
The question of who exactly was Emily’s primary subject of romantic attachment during
the poet’s lifetime remains a great mystery. Leonard Humphries, her first literary mentor and the
principal of Amherst Academy, could have been her first girlish love and his aforementioned
death in 1850 cast a dark shadow over her early years. George Gould, a talented writer and
orator, as well as a classmate of her brother Austin’s could have been an infatuation – she even
went as far as to write a valentine to him that was published in the Amherst College newspaper
The Indicator.
However, none of them quite matched the ardor Emily perhaps felt for Judge Otis Lord, a
much older friend of her father’s who shared his politics in the then dying ideology of the Whig
21
party. However, despite this, Judge Lord had a successful political career that was truly the
hallmark of his life as he rose in 1859 to gain appointment to the Massachusetts Superior Court
and then later served on the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts from 1875-1882
(emilydickinsonmuseum.org). He was a distinguished public figure, called “one of the very
ablest men in this State” but then Massachusetts Congressman Rufus Choate, (Sewall, p. 642)
and thrilling orator.
Lord is the popular choice of many biographers for the pivotal love interest in Emily’s
life. Though their friendship and correspondence supposedly persisted over many years, from the
time Lord held her on his knee as a baby to his death in 1884, Lord may have only afforded
Emily a last opportunity for love in later years. In the beginning, what prevented them from
joining in union was not their large age difference of eighteen years, but rather the fact that Lord
was married to Elizabeth Farley Lord, a member of Boston high society whose predecessors
included a president of Harvard College (Sewall, p. 643).
Although some biographers sensationalize circumstances that placed Emily and Judge
Lord in the same geographic location at the same time, most notably during Emily’s treatments
for an eye condition in Boston in 1864 and 1865 (Walsh, p. 71), it is likely that Emily and Judge
Lord never consummated their relationship, but stuck mainly to letters to keep their relationship
alive. In fact, the topic of love was not broached at all until after Mrs. Lord’s death in 1877.
Fifteen letters survive of the correspondence between Emily and Lord, and this one mounts the
strongest feeling. Here, she calls him “Salem”, after the town in Massachusetts in which he
resided.
“My lovely Salem smiles at me. I seek his Face so often- but I have done with guises. I confess that I love him- I
rejoice that I love him- I thank the maker of Heaven and Earth-that gave him me to love- the exultation floods me. I
cannot find my channel-the Creek turns Sea-at thought of thee- Will you punish me? “Involuntary Bankruptcy” how
could that be Crime? Incarcerate me in yourself-rosy penalty-threading with you this lovely maze, which is not Life
22
or Death-though it has the intangibleness of one, and the flush of the other-waking for your sake on Day made
magical with you before I went…”
(Sewall, pp. 653-654)
Since so few letters survive of the correspondence between Judge Otis Lord (he ordered
that many of his personal letters and documents be burned after he died) and Emily Dickinson,
and no record survives of their meetings, it is difficult to ascertain what exactly it was about Lord
that drew him to Emily on this level. From quotes from Henry V and Othello that appear in the
fifteen surviving letters we can assume that each respected the intellect of the other, and perhaps
loved the same literature, but beyond this, it is clear from the language Emily uses in the above
letter that Lord may have offered for her the metaphysical connection that she so desired, and
meditating on this love may have proved to be a large part of her internal escape from Amherst
life.
Three drafts of different letters, never sent or formally addressed, also survive in the
Dickinson oeuvre, and these are known as the “Master” letters. They were written in 1862, over
a decade before Emily’s profession of love and just on the cusp of the decade that marked her
most prolific period of writing, 1864-1874.
Though no concrete evidence exists that can tie these to Lord, but thanks to key phrases
in one such as “Low at the knee that bore her once unto royal rest” (Walsh, p. 31) scholars
speculate that they are indeed addressed to him, or at least some figure of fatherly age, a
characteristic that Judge Lord surely matched. The tender language, slightly more desperate,
coming from a younger, more impetuous Emily, also bears some similarities to the previously
referenced letter addressed directly to Lord:
“Oh, how the sailor strains when his boat is filling. Oh how the dying tug till the angel comes. Master, open your life
wide and take me in forever. I will never be tired. I will never be noisy when you want to be still. I will be your best
little girl-nobody else will see me but you, but that is enough. I shall not want anymore, and all that Heaven will
only disappoint me because it’s not so dear.”
(Walsh, p. 31)
23
Perhaps Emily never sent this letter out of embarrassment for its raw, unbridled emotion,
or perhaps she herself did not care for the rhetoric she had decided to place on the page. At that
time she was only just beginning to discover her poetic voice, that everlasting companion that
she truly knew to be her own, far above any fellow earthly presence.
In fact, it seems plausible that it was the presence of this “higher calling” that
simultaneously untied and divided Lord and Emily Dickinson more than anything else. “About
Lord she wrote: “Abstinence from Melody was what made him die” and apparently Lord was
consigned to be a part of that special class of New England male (much like the Edward
Dickinson that “never played”) that insisted upon working until they dropped dead. (Sewall p.
649)
Ultimately, Judge Lord and Emily Dickinson never consummated their relationship
because they genuinely believed that if they were to throw their obligations to the wind and
thrown themselves fully into the commitment of their relationship, this would be the equivalent
of him abandoning his calling as a judge, and hers as a poet. (Sewall, p. 655) Thus, in choosing
to risk nothing, each party eventually lost all of what could have been their greatest love. To
Emily’s great grief, Judge Otis Lord died in 1884, and she followed him a mere two years after,
in 1886.
However, the same resolve that denied her true love, what could have been her biggest
happiness, was also her strongest escape from Amherst life. From her schoolgirl days, when her
friends and tutors Benjamin Newton (a student in her father’s law office) and Leonard Humphrey
encouraged her literary talents, to her later years, Emily Dickinson always held onto a strong
sense of identity. She was aware of her place in the community, her worth as a person of class
and intelligence, an educated woman in a time when the suffrage movement was in its infancy.
24
Emily knew her calling for the majority of her life. Her desperate desire to become a poet
initiated her aforementioned à la carte lifestyle and her propensity to remain indoors in her later
years.
Emily had always known that the people of Amherst regarded her with scrutiny. As a
Dickinson, expectations ran high for the granddaughter of the legendary Samuel “The Squire”
Fowler Dickinson. This local legend was known through the town history as a charismatic force
of nature who began to practice law in Amherst in1797, and then devoted most of his life to the
role of a founding partner of Amherst College, an entity that fostered growth of the whole
community of Amherst.
Indeed to be a Dickinson was to expect greatness, but in this role weighed the expectancy
of others that one would break under enough pressure. Amherst College was a hard-won success,
and in his lifetime, he saw it in its infancy of dire financial straits, rather than its later glory
among the nation’s greatest small liberal arts colleges. Samuel was also humiliated in that he
sacrificed his family’s landholdings on the founding of Amherst College. Most embarrassingly,
Samuel lost the Dickinson Homestead, which he sold in 1833. This was a great blow, and
although Edward Dickinson would glorify his father’s name by purchasing the same house in
1855, and it was here that Emily would write her greatest poems, Samuel would have thought his
home to be lost forever. His heart and health were broken, and he retreated to a position in the
West, where he died in 1835.
Amherst held its breath, waiting for another brilliant, troubled Dickinson genius, but
Edward Dickinson, Emily’s father, squared his jaw and solemnly refused to grant his community
this satisfaction. Samuel’s responsible, eldest son was the foil to his father’s reckless energy, and
Edward expected all of his children to adopt this role in their lives, and become responsible,
25
conventional, pillars of the community.
However, even the strongest fortresses have cracks in their walls, and there is surely no
doubt that behind a stern façade, Edward Dickinson had a passionate nature. We know he loved
his children with a force that drove him to buy The Evergreens, a property that adjoined his own,
for his son’s family. He also managed to keep his daughters safely ensconced in the Homestead
for their entire lives. There is even a tale of a legendary sunset in Amherst, during which Edward
Dickinson allegedly rang the steeple bells (only to be sounded in an emergency) to ensure that all
citizens would turn to look upon Nature in all her fiery glory.
Austin and Emily Dickinson were most likely equal parts in their heart Edward and
Samuel (mild Lavinia was more her mother’s child) but Emily was the sibling with the mental
fortitude, grace, and empathy needed to calmly accept this part of herself, without rage or
judgment. Austin spent his life toiling away at a law practice, marrying a girl whom he thought
to be lovely and sensible, and settling down next to his father. He threw away the shameful
failings of his soul that belonged to Samuel, and struggled to shove himself into a mold that he
simply could not fit. Thus, he lost himself, and nearly destroyed his family in his tumultuous
quest for fulfillment with Mabel Loomis Todd.
This is not to say Emily never felt the pressures of being a Dickinson weighing heavily
upon her. In fact, as a young child, she confided to Austin a nightmare that the family’s
“rye…field was mortgaged to Seth Nims” (the local postmaster and a political opponent of her
father’s)” (Sewall, p. 41).
Her grandfather’s demons were ever present to Emily and Austin, and, although she was
given to a host of strange behaviors in her later life, she mostly tucked these issues away in her
Pandora’s box of poetry. Biographers do not document apparent examples of fear, anxiety,
26
passion, or fluctuations of mood in Emily’s actions in life. Rather, they are present in her
writings which she preserved and hid away so carefully. Much like these mountains of covert
scrawling on paper, wrappers, and the backs of old documents discovered only after her death,
Emily kept her emotions similarly safe from the public eye. Rather than subject her most inner
feelings to the criticism of the outside world, Emily held these parts of herself inward into her
heart, where she could value them and where they would sustain her.
“Compared with the rest of her family, Emily was one of the best composed of all, perhaps because she understood
the problem better than any of them and through the discipline of her writing brought it under tolerable control.
Nevertheless, the shifts in mood and tone in her poems, from despair to ecstasy, from a sense of the mastery of life
to complete helplessness; the strange defenses that she eventually threw up to guard her privacy-the “fiery mist” as
Higginson put it, with which she enshrouded herself; the behavior that even the most charitable could hardly call
normal-all these signified, surely, an inner life that (to put it in the mildest terms) gave her a great deal of trouble. In
this too, she was very much a Dickinson.”
(Sewall, p. 40)
Indeed, Emily not only used her writing as a vital tool for self-preservation, but also as a
key part of her identity. She saw herself as a humble artist, poet, and intellectual, with a quiet
strength and a healthy sense of wonder that could sustain her despite bouts of human self-doubt.
If she had acquiesced to the persona of Emily Dickinson that Amherst society imposed upon her,
she would not have been able to devote herself entirely to this noble pursuit. Before any reader
knew this truth, Emily knew the vast scope of her mind, and the importance of her voice.
By hiding her poetry, never making a truly honest effort to publish and only asking
critique of those whom she adored, Emily Dickinson, in a seer-like manner, acknowledged that
her art might only receive recognition after her death. She displays this sentiment in a letter to
Sue regarding a poem, wherein she states: “Could I make you and Austin –proud –sometime –a
great way off –‘twould give me taller feet.” (Sewall, p. 201)
Perhaps Emily’s biggest exhibition of self- assurance and clarity laid in the one time
Emily ventured beyond her private circle of friends to gain an opinion on her work. She sought
recognition for her poems when she sent them to Thomas Wentworth Higginson, a prolific writer
27
who was a frequent contributor to the Atlantic Monthly, a prominent publication of the time.
His April 1862 article “Letter to a Young Contributor” inspired Emily, particularly
through the manner in which he addressed the note. He began with the introduction “My dear
young gentleman or young lady”, immediately setting himself apart from other old fashioned
editors as a feminist, encouraging new writers by requesting submissions from “new or obscure
contributors”, and by his insistence that editors were “always hungering and thirsting after
novelties.” Through his declaration of love to the “magnificent mystery of words” and his
brilliant rhetoric that “a book is the only immortality,” Emily was also convinced that she had
found a kindred spirit, who placed the art of writing and words on the same holy pedestal that
she did.
She plucked up her courage and sent four poems to this illustrious gentleman, “Safe in
their Alabaster Chambers”, “The nearest Dream recedes unrealized”, “We play at Paste” and
“I’ll tell you how the Sun rose”. In her signature intimate style of correspondence that was at
once meek and humorously bold, she also enclosed the following inquiry asking whether or not
her treasured verses might be considered suitable as art:
“ MR. HIGGINSON,-Are you too deeply occupied to say if my verse is alive? The mind is so near itself it cannot see distinctlyand I have none to askShould you think it breathed- and had you the leisure to tell me, I should feel quick gratitudeIf I make the mistake- that you dared to tell me- would give me sincerer honor-toward youI enclose my name- asking you, if you please- Sir- to tell me what is true?
That you will not betray me-it is needless to ask-since honor is its own pawn-”
(Sewall, p. 541)
Upon receiving these mysterious, small, masterpieces of verse, and an introductory letter
that was far sparser than etiquette of the time dictated, Higginson was immediately intrigued by
Emily Dickinson. However, his approach was one of wariness as well as wonder. There was no
denying that her style was not conducive to audiences of the time. “He called her gait
‘spasmodic’ and ‘uncontrolled’ and urged her to delay to publish.” (Sewall, p. 533).
28
There is also a distinct possibility that Emily had missed the mark entirely in her
assessment of Higginson’s character through her reading of “Letter to a Young Contributor”. She
had perhaps endowed him with more faith than he deserved, and casually believed that her
impossibly profound powers of empathy were also common in others. The reality is that despite
all of his learning and politics, Higginson existed on a far more superficial humanistic, emotional
and intellectual level than Emily did.
“It was eight years before he finally reached Amherst, and even then he was miles away from her [Emily]
imaginatively. He had none of her inquiring, groping, experimental spirit. To judge from his words and actions, he
seems never to have been “haunted” (to use a favorite word of hers) by mysteries or doubts. He knew frustration and
loss, and his many causes did not always triumph. But he knew they were just.”
(Sewall, p. 550)
To this established Massachusetts, author, editor, and orator, Emily was a novice in the
literary world. Nevertheless, Higginson saw no need to terminate what could prove to be a
promising mentorship – perhaps evolving into a professional relationship outside of the
publishing sector later. Thus, his first response to her was not discouraging, but purposely veered
away from the subject of her poetry to inquire more about her life, her education, her age, and
her appearance, anything but her poetry. One may argue that this “myth”, the character of Emily
Dickinson, whose answers to these letters contained as much playful evasiveness as that of an
“accomplished coquette” (Sewall, p. 542) was just as interesting to Higginson as any of the
strange verse she laid out.
However, over the course of the correspondence, it became apparent that the Dickinson
and Higginson motives differed on a fundamental level. Emily sought an opportunity to be heard,
while Higginson sought another protégé. He was no stranger to the inner circles of Boston
literary high society, and had Emily edited her poems to Higginson’s liking, or deigned to be
paraded about by her mentor for the likes of Ralph Waldo Emerson, her life might have been
29
quite different. Higginson was no stranger to the task of lifting talented young writers from
obscurity into prominence.
However, Emily never adjusted a single line or lack of rhyme to adhere to her mentor’s
suggestions. She perhaps took a bit of pride in her eccentricity, and knew that giving in to this
kind of temptation would sacrifice the integrity of her work and character. At a time where a
career engineered by Higginson would have meant certain success and freedom for a young
woman like Emily, the mental fortitude and self-possession needed for her to refuse this must
have been extraordinary. Or perhaps, an offer of this kind had never even occurred to her, so
lofty was her ideal of “art”. Later in 1862, she wrote to him:
“I smile when you suggest that I delay “to publish”- that being foreign to my thought, as Firmament to Fin- If fame
belonged to me, I could not escape her- if she did not, the longest day would pass me on the chase, and the
approbation of my Dog, would forsake me-then- My Barefoot-Rank is better.”
(Sewall, pp. 553-554)
Emily’s extraordinary sense of self-definition shows itself the greatest in this instance,
and she eventually settled for a blooming, true friendship with Thomas Wentworth Higginson
that lasted twenty-four years, from that first fateful letter of 1862 to her death in 1886. He visited
Amherst twice, once to converse with his eccentric Amherst poetess, and the last to read the
stirring Emily Brontë text “No Coward Soul is Mine” at her funeral. Higginson saw the true
enduring nature of Emily’s poetic style only after her death-when he took on the role of coeditor of the first two collections of her poetry-along with Mabel Loomis Todd. Thus, began the
privilege of readers everywhere to hold conversation with her extraordinary mind.
From her strong powers of observation, to her quiet insurrection against the injustices of
God and the world, to her peerless, ever loving heart and intense powers of empathy to her
steadfast, almost holy sense of self-definition, Emily Dickinson re-defines herself continually in
history, not as the weak-willed, mild, fearful, enigmatic myth, but rather as one of the most red-
30
blooded women of her time. In a life that could have produced naught but small joy, and, perhaps
a little idleness, Emily chose a higher calling. She retreated inward to escape from Amherst, and
thus establishes herself as an icon of American literary history.
31
Artist Reflection
Art song, or vocal music set to preexisting poetry or prose, lies at the foundation of any
singer’s education. From the time that a young musician expresses an interest in the world of
classical voice, they are accosted with songs that seem to exist solely for the purpose of setting
them on the road towards garnering a healthy vocal technique and providing an first introduction
to foreign languages; Giordani’s “Caro mio ben” for the beginning Italian scholar, Brahms’ “Wie
Melodien” for German, and for French, doubtless something by Fauré will most likely be present
in a young singer’s repertoire.
This was my introduction to singing in a group voice class in high school with other
students, all of us singing the same song multiple times in a row until the overall effect was
rather unpleasant. However, despite hearing Italian phrases butchered daily and singing along to
recorded accompaniments that made it difficult to make a performance one’s own, I knew that
these little pieces of music existed for some higher purpose rather than to simply be a stepping
stone towards the mastery of Mozart arias.
It was art song that taught me that singing is about more than achieving an ideal tone or
executing every rule of foreign language diction perfectly. Every sung text exists for the purpose
of telling a story, and the performer’s challenge is to decide what that is for themselves through
the comprehensive analysis of poetry in music.
Fast forward five years later, and I am completing my vocal performance degree more in
love with art song than ever before. The artistry and complexity of this music goes deeper than I
will likely be able to transcend in my lifetime. The relationship between words and music has
never ceased to amaze me, so there was no question in my mind that my capstone project would
be entrenched in this fascinating world.
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My studies at Syracuse in foreign language diction and art song literature had encouraged
me to think of the art song genre as a strong indicator of national identity, and the prospect of
building a capstone around this philosophy excited me. I knew resources concerning this topic
would be abundant for me, because music and literature are both widely accepted as a part of the
characterization of nations. I discerned that for every culture in the world that has bred poets,
there are composers who have brought their words to life.
Thus, the aesthetic variety that exists between German lieder, French mélodie, and
Italian, English, Spanish, Russian, and American art song is truly astounding. Weighted down by
the philosophical gravity of Goethe and inspired by the pastoral pictures of Schiller, the lied
genre tends to lean towards overbearing emotions, such as the devastation of forsaken love or the
abundant joy in a beautiful spring day. The esoteric impressionism of Baudelaire and Verlaine is
echoed in the ambiguous tonalities of Debussy, and in the beautiful lines of Zuaznábar’s poetry,
one can hear Granados’ florid interjections, indicative of flamenco. Through this lens I saw many
options for research, and I knew that in order to narrow my capstone topic, I first had to settle on
one of these key geographic areas.
Although I had a great love for all of these repertoires, I knew that American art song was
the music that truly thrilled me to my fingertips. Not only did American art song lie closest to my
own cultural identity, but also I appreciated the vast differences between every composer’s
compositional aesthetic. From the harmonic brashness and humor of Aaron Copland, Charles
Ives, and Leonard Bernstein to the lyricism of Jake Heggie, Lori Laitman, and John Harbison,
every song was as unique as a fingerprint.
Because the American art song genre derives
inspiration from many different musical genres, it is the most difficult art song genre for which
to pin down concrete, defining characteristics. Intrigued by this challenge, I chose to perform a
33
recital of exclusively American song coupled with research concerning the evolution of this
genre.
However, it took one meeting with my advisor to realize that with this idea, I would be
attempting a project that was nearly impossible in scope. Examining the evolution of the genre of
American art song would mean exploring a catalog of repertoire that spanned centuries,
familiarizing myself with the folk music of various regions of America, the influence of
European composition aesthetics on American schools of musical thought, and the historical
development of the genres of musical theatre and jazz, all of which played an enormous part in
the creation of the genre of American art song. Rather it would be more palpable to narrow my
scope to one composer, one group of composers, or music set to the texts of one poet.
Because for me picking a favored composer was a task akin to a mother choosing her
favorite child, I set about scouring art song catalogs for a poet whose texts spoke to me. While
the scores set to texts of Walt Whitman, e.e. cummings, Carl Sandburg, and Robert Frost stood
out as favorites for me, I found myself drawn to the words of the enigmatic and renowned
poetess Emily Dickinson.
Dickinson’s texts have endured for over a century because their meaning is almost as
opaque as the myths surrounding much of her biography. Within her poems one may discover
infinite characters, stories, styles, and possibilities. These same traits also make her texts equally
attractive for composers to set to music. While other poets of the English language such as
Shakespeare use great quantities of descriptive words, leaving little room for doubt as to their
interpretation, Dickinson’s incredible economy of language and fluid verse structures – lyrical
and smooth one moment, and coarse and jagged the next – give artistic freedom for composers to
create and interpret, making every setting of Dickinson’s words radically different. (Heggie,
34
06/02/2015)
While these aspects of Dickinson’s poems made for an interesting and rewarding study
for me, they also constituted a small problem. There are hundreds of songs set to texts by Emily
Dickinson, written by composers whose catalogs reflect over a century of American music
history – and I had now tasked myself with the undertaking of combining a very small part of
these into a comprehensive concert event.
Furthermore, I was far from the first musician to be inspired to create a recital of this
nature. For example, soloists from the Grammy – Award winning choral ensemble Conspirare
compiled an all – Dickinson concert as per their 2014-2015 concert series entitled The Poet
Sings, in which the works of different poets and composers are featured every concert. Another
2014 event at Pasadena City College, This, and My Heart: A Portrait of Emily Dickinson utilized
the work of a singer, pianist, and an actress to tell the story of Emily Dickinson’s biography. As I
struggled towards a final vision for my project, I became more and more discouraged as my
Internet searches yielded even more events curated by organizations such as Boston Singer’s
Resource and mounted at a variety of universities including Smith College, Western Washington
University, Williams College, and even University of Southern California. I began to feel a lot of
pressure to create an individual work of art – and very little room to do so.
This led to a time of uncertainty throughout the spring and part of the summer of 2015,
when I was listening to countless recordings, reading biographies, and rifling through sheet
music in search of something, anything, that I could say that had not been said before. The
musical catalogs of Ernst Bacon and Aaron Copland were of great interest to me during this
period, because the majority of their art song input had ultilized Emily Dickinson texts.
However, these works were so widely performed that I feared that if I were to program them, I
35
would be accused of trying to duplicate the format of another artist’s event! Unfortunately, I
believe that this fear ultimately hung up my progress, and I became a little too concerned with
creating something different, eliminating viable options for repertoire earlier on, only to bring
them back later.
A matter of my own taste was also a problem for me. For some composers such as Jake
Heggie, the text settings captured me immediately, and I could not resist making a few purchases
to begin my studies. For other composers such as Libby Larsen and Lori Laitman, it was their
text settings that drew me in. Without any kind of a theme or dramatic arc in place, I was unsure
of whether to choose my program according to my musical preferences, or whether to make an
effort to create a dramatic or thematic correlation between the texts of each song. Discovering a
lot of new music was a joyful part of this process for me, but it was also a venture that I found
quite frustrating. In some ways, I truly had no idea what I wanted to find through all of this
searching.
Although this was a time of discouragement for me, I had a bright event ahead of me that
I was sure would bring me progress. In January 2015 I had traveled down to New York City with
some friends to audition for SongFest, a competitive young artist program in Los Angeles
completely devoted to the study of art song. The classes looked wonderful and the faculty was a
star-studded mix of famous composers, singers, pianists and directors. Among these luminaries
was Jake Heggie – whose compositions I had already begun to learn.
I was thrilled to hear of my acceptance in March, and I eagerly sent in a list of repertoire
that I would be prepared to perform. Of the many songs that I submitted for consideration, only
about ten were selected for master classes and concerts, and I was relieved to see my Dickinson
texts among them. Furthermore, I was thrilled to see that I was to perform one of my Heggie-
36
Dickinson works in a master class for the composer himself.
The gifts of learning I received at SongFest were more than I could have ever hoped for.
For one month, the venerable Colburn School, one of the finest institutions for instrumentalists in
the nation was transformed into a veritable playground for singers. There were over one hundred
of us in the small recital hall each morning, scribbling furiously on our notepads as our
colleagues sang, and apart from discovering new repertoire and expanding my knowledge of all
aspects of the art song genre by leaps and bounds, I learned three particularly valuable lessons
concerning artistic individuality, the importance of text in art song, and the relationship between
this text and all the artists involved in the creation and performance of a song.
The first lesson centered on the principle of inevitable artistic individuality. One hundred
and twenty singers and about thirty pianists participated in SongFest that summer. Singers were
mainly within the age range of seventeen to thirty four, and over the course of four weeks I heard
hundreds of songs. It was inevitable that I would encounter other singers who sang repertoire
similar to my own; for nearly every soprano had studied Schubert’s Gretchen am Spinnrade and
Leonard Bernstein’s Five Kid Songs. However, as I listened to every singer at the festival, I
realized that not only did every singer possess a unique instrument that lent a slightly different
vocal color to every piece of music, but the way each singer used their special instrument to
express the text was different. Even if each of us had been given the same song to sing every
day, the performance would have been completely different.
I had initially shied away from selecting any of Aaron Copland’s Twelve Songs of Emily
Dickinson for any part of my final recital not only because of their intense musical difficulty, but
because they were popular choices for many Emily Dickinson themed recitals that I had
discovered online. However, as I heard the songs performed by a variety of young singers at
37
SongFest, I became more confident that I could manage to make them my own. It was silly of me
to allow the popularity of beautiful music to dissuade me from performing it.
The second lesson I learned laid in the finer nuances in expressing text. My favorite
course at SongFest was taught by a director named Edwin Cahill, and for each lesson, he
encouraged us to unpack our texts more thoroughly than any of us had in the past-effectively
treating each song as a one-act play. Upon closer examination, we realized that most of our texts,
no matter how esoteric or bizarre the language, seems to follow the basic conventions of a plot
line: within these stanzas, there was exposition, rising action, a climax, falling action, and a
conclusion – one simply had to have imagination enough to see it.
The program had selected different songs from our repertoires for us to perform in
concert, and while some students had arbitrarily been assigned songs with longer stanzas and
more language to make a story out of, some of us were saddled with texts of just one stanza that
somehow had to be stretched into a comprehensive storyline. Dickinson was known for her
economy of speech, so unsurprisingly, I found myself grappling with a very beautiful, but short
and efficient text set to a Jake Heggie song with the length of a minute and a half.
At last to be identified!
At last the lamps upon thy side
The rest of life to see!
Past Midnight, past the morning star!
Past sunrise! Ah! What leagues there were
Between our feet and day!
With this, I was completely at a loss. Without the breaks of stanzas to guide me, it was
difficult for me to see beyond what the poet wanted me to feel. It took careful thought for me to
realize that within my performance, I had more creative control than I dreamed possible. I had
never before truly realized that I was not only a vessel of the artists who wrote the text and
38
music, but rather what they had written had crafted the perfect tools for me to convey my
message as a performer.
Edwin encouraged me to turn to the musical framework that Heggie had attributed to the
text to guide my endeavors, and it only took me a short while to realize how liberally Heggie had
treated the text in his musical setting. The song was set in a loose ABA format with similar
material in the accompaniment at the beginning and end of the work, broken apart in such a
manner:
•
•
•
•
Section A: At last to be identified/At last the lamps upon thy side/The rest of life to see!
Section B: Past Midnight, past the morning star! Past sunrise!
Section C: Ah!
Section D: What leagues there were/Between our feet and day!
A driving piano accompaniment ushers in the first section, and these rushes in the piano
are exchanged in a somewhat call and response manner with the declamatory text. This serves as
the piece’s exposition. The rising action lies in the B section, the accompaniment becomes more
urgent and driving, and the vocal line is starts quietly but grows louder, leading to a complete
stop in the piano and the dramatic vocalise in section C that serves as the climax. Section D sees
the reemergence of harmonic and rhythmic material from the accompaniment in section A, and
with this bookend, the piece and story reach their conclusion. The song now really was a one-actplay – with a much more compelling storyline than I had ever realized before.
It was now up to me to relate to the piece by crafting my own personal narrative to go
with this framework. I had to decide the level of investment of this speaker in the words that
were being said, and most importantly to whom they were addressed. Though imagination
played a part in crafting a storyline and intention for every character in my songs, I was also
encouraged to look deep inside myself, and to unearth deep personal happiness and deep sadness
39
that I could draw from to enhance the text that I was meant to communicate. It was even
suggested that I go as far as to mentally place myself in a familiar physical environment in order
to more effectively tell this story. At last to be identified! was one of Emily’s more cosmic and
esoteric poems concerning self-definition and a place in the universe, but now I had to discover
exactly what the grandiose imagery that she used meant to me.
For me, the act of intertwining real memories with imagined circumstances and then
mentally implementing them in a known physical environment was a strange but effective
phenomenon. The more I thought about it, I realized that I had ventured far away from my home
in New York not to only gain knowledge about music, but also to gain some clarity regarding
certain personal problems that I had at school the previous year. It had been a year of academic
pressure, artistic doubt, and familial struggle. On top of that, I had also gone through the struggle
of falling in love with one of my fellow students, with a rather sad result. Strangely, I found
myself physically three time zones ahead in Los Angeles, but more often than not, mentally I
was also still living life in my South Campus apartment at Syracuse. In some ways it was more
effective for me to tell my stories imagining that I was standing in the location where they
occurred, rather than on a stage at the Colburn School.
While going deeper into this text was emotionally difficult for me at first, it was
ultimately rewarding and helped me move beyond the initial hurt of what I was feeling to
discover some strength that I did not know I had. It was empowering to realize –even if I was the
furthest thing from a finished artist- that I held the potential to translate my grief, anxiety, and
doubt into something that was artistically fulfilling and constructive.
Putting this kind of emotional investment into the text not only augmented my
performance in a way that made it more sincere and believable for an audience, but it also helped
40
me enjoy the performance even more. Through engaging deeper parts of myself that I had
previously refused to acknowledge, I had found a way in which to be more giving of myself to
my audiences. At last, to be identified is now one of my favorite songs to sing.
On the other side of matters, another lesson that I learned here (as that I unfortunately
keep learning) as a performer was that the intensity of what one feels in their heart while singing
or performing is not always immediately translatable to an audience. I first became familiar with
this frustrating truth in the Jake Heggie master class that I performed in at SongFest. I got up to
sing As Well as Jesus, another short, but thankfully much more emotionally transparent text than
At Last to be identified, and having organized the text and music in a similar manner that I had
done in my “Song as a One-Act Play” class, I was convinced that I had done the necessary work.
However, after I completed my song, the composer walked up to the piano with me, told
me to take off my shoes so that I would be more comfortable, and asked if I was a shy person. I
was absolutely floored. I certainly was victim to the occasional bought of stage fright if I felt
underprepared, but now was not one of those cases. Although I am not the type of person who
deliberately seeks out attention, most people consider me warm, enthusiastic, caring, and
outgoing. Still dumbfounded, I mutely shook my head, perhaps further proving Mr. Heggie’s
point.
“Well I’m not getting that vibe.” Mr. Heggie said to me. “In fact, I am getting the
sensation that you were really uncomfortable up there. Tell me where you are and what you are
doing in this song. I want you to convince me. I need you to be stronger.” He went on to explain
the necessity of portraying a strong character onstage, no matter what your emotional context
was. “Don’t be a victim!” he empowered us. “Nobody wants to watch a victim onstage, nobody
41
cares. What people want to see is a strong person get brought to their knees because that is what
is real – and it’s going to be twice as heartbreaking”.
I had been playing the song from the standpoint of a particularly sad experience that I
had, but going solely with this emotion had caused me to project a shut-down, closed-off,
defeated looking image that I had not realized. One emotion is not going to be enough onstage –
in fact, when humans react to real life situations, rarely is only one emotion present. In
heartbreak, there is not only sadness, but probably a bit of anger as well, directed both externally
and internally.
In different classes besides the one I performed in, Mr. Heggie also brought up the
concept of “Going to the Well”. Within a single song, the intentions (water in the well) of up to
three different artists – the poet, composer, and performer are mixed. When an artist creates a
new work, they not only draw upon the intentions of the artist who first poured their water into
the well, but they also add their own. The artist who performs the work then forms the third tier
of this ritual, pouring their own intentions (made up of their personal narrative- the one act play)
into the well, in addition to being inspired by the intentions of the poet and composer. No one’s
creativity is diluted, and I loved the imagery of the artistic energy mixing together in one
beautiful and deep container.
In a way, it was specifically this image that inspired the creation of the Escape from
Amherst project. The “well” process would always be an essential part of my performance
experience, but the idea struck me that maybe I could create a truly unique project if I used every
element of what I had learned in my young performing life to create a full circle and get back to
the true and first source of art song – the poet.
I wanted to use music set to Emily Dickinson’s texts to redefine her personality for
42
audiences and create a snapshot of her life. I decided that it would not be enough to tell her story
from my perspective, and that through this performance I would venture to become Emily
Dickinson. Although she repeatedly claimed to one of her most treasured correspondents,
Thomas Wentworth Higginson, that her poetry was not autobiographical, I trusted that she drew
on the nature of her life – if not her own life events as part of her poetic source material.
I now began to read the biographies of Emily Dickinson in earnest, and discovered that
many of them created an image of her that was rather clichéd. In fact, apart from Richard B.
Sewall’s 1974 publication The Life of Emily Dickinson, many of these huge tomes, such as
Genevieve Taggard’s The Life and Mind of Emily Dickinson and John Evangelist Walsh’s Emily
Dickinson in Love: The Case for Otis Lord seemed to paint a picture of her solely as a peculiar
recluse, victimized by the strict hand of her father and a stifling New England community.
I had undergone an artistic pilgrimage to discover parts of myself when I ventured to Los
Angeles, and now it was to make another journey for the sake of Emily. I could imagine
endeavoring to represent her onstage if I had never stood where she stood. With this idea in
mind, I traveled to Amherst Massachusetts in order to visit the Emily Dickinson Museum. Under
the ownership of Amherst College, this institution is devoted to the careful study of all personal
and environmental aspects of the poet’s life.
The quaint, peaceful property of the museum consists of charming gardens behind an iron
fence and two properties, known as the Homestead (where Emily lived) and the Evergreens
(where her brother Austin lived with his wife Susan and children). The museum is also
committed to restoring all aspects of the house to as it appeared in mid 19th-century Amherst – at
the height of Emily Dickinson’s literary productivity. I trod through the house expecting to find
dull, lifeless rooms equipped with dusty books and cobwebs. However, instead I found a space
43
that was perhaps a little musty smelling, but overall cozy, warm, and comfortable, offering a
delightful feeling of home.
Dickinson’s bedroom was perhaps the biggest shock of all. I was not so fortunate as to
visit the bedroom by the time that the restoration was completed in late August of 2015, but I
was astounded to discover a calm, yet joyful room, filled with natural light, displaying a full
view of the mostly forested property of the homestead. However, my guide informed me that in
the mid-1800’s Emily would have been able to see pastures stretched out to the west, and
perhaps a bit of the campus of the venerable Amherst College to the south. It was a space one
would gladly stay and work in for a long period of time.
It occurred to me that perhaps Emily’s life of isolation and deprivation did not quite seem
so to her. Perhaps it was an act of protest, or maybe she simply endeavored to fulfill the role of
quiet observer and documenter rather than that of active participant in the realm of the living.
Whether the answer laid in either of these hypotheses or a mixture of both, I realized that my
event and my studies would seek to answer the question of how much control Emily had over her
own decisions; and whether or not hers truly was a life of freedom.
The more I learned, I found Emily to be an altogether fascinating character. She lived
through observation – through her keen attention to the action of insects and the flowers she
cared for. She read books of a poetic and religious nature, and while her personal conscience was
not saddled with many of the hyper-Puritan conventions of New England society, she was a
spiritual person. Indeed, during the few outings of her later life she caught waves of the
Evangelist revivals sweeping the country. A voracious reader of the news, mostly the popular
Atlantic Monthly, she was also painfully aware of the civil war sweeping the country, and felt
acutely the emotional impact it had on her community. She decried the painful aspects of war
44
and religion in her poetry.
Who was the primary subject of romantic attachment during her lifetime remains a great
mystery. Leonard Humphries, her first literary mentor and the principal of Amherst Academy,
could have been her first girlish love and his death in 1850 cast a dark shadow over her early
years. George Gould, a talented writer and orator, as well as a classmate of her brother Austin’s
could have been an infatuation. Judge Otis Lord, a much older friend of her father’s might have
vied for her affections in later years. However, even if Emily never had a true romantic
relationship during her relatively short life, she was subject to feelings of strong attachment, and
keen to observe it in others. Despite her later propensity towards staying at home and neglecting
to receive visitors, she wrote to friends she had made at school in her early years religiously, and
pending this, as an older woman, she was a firsthand observer of a torrid affair between her
brother Austin and the young Mabel Loomis Todd, a woman twenty years his junior.
Amidst all of the confusion that wracked Emily’s heart and that poured into her head
from the outside world, however, she did remain steadfast in one aspect: her strong sense of
identity. She was aware of her place in the community, her worth as a person of class and
intelligence, an educated woman in a time when the suffrage movement was in its infancy. She
also knew well the microscope that the community placed her under, as the daughter of Edward
Dickinson, a lawyer and at times prominent town politician, and in turn the daughter of Samuel
“The Squire” Fowler Dickinson, a local legend and community who sacrificed his family’s
landholdings and ultimately his health on the founding of Amherst College. Edward, the
responsible, eldest was the foil to his father’s reckless energy, and Emily was expected to fill the
same shoes. In her own queer way, she both shrugged off these expectations, and fulfilled them
as her father’s favorite child.
45
With a growing character in mind, my search for music to perform became much simpler,
and much more of a creative joy. I delved further into the texts of the great variety of her poems
that I knew had been set to music, and after setting the texts I liked the best alongside the music I
liked the best, I settled on the beautifully intricate musical organisms that were the songs of Lori
Laitman, the sweepingly lyrical pieces of Jake Heggie, and when I reconciled in my mind the
first lesson I had learned at SongFest, I added seven of Aaron Copland’s Twelve Songs of Emily
Dickinson. Even if they were the most popular pieces in the Dickinson art song repertory, I could
not resist their beauty, or the challenge of performing them.
Based on this information concerning Emily’s personality (which I will elaborate on
further in my companion study) I ventured to take these texts and use them to create the song sets
to create the picture of Emily’s life. In my vocal literature class at Setnor, I had learned of the
idea of a themed recital, utilizing sets of songs that would ultimately create a dramatic arc. I
strove to do that with this project, and I titled the sets A Keen Eye, for her love of nature and
observing habits, Quiet Insurrection for her rage, confusion, and ultimately quiet strength while
weighing the world’s injustices, Peerless Heart for her own private attachments as well as those
she observed secondhand, and last Clarity, for her strong sense of self and ability to settle the
madness that rages inside us all.
I was truly pleased with this idea, but after visiting Emily’s room at Amherst, I was also
struck with a separate need to add a visual aspect to my performance. Somehow, I could not
reconcile the idea of creating Emily without also creating the space that was a part of her, in
which she ultimately found herself and her freedom. It was a wonderful idea, but it came to
fruition in my mind far too late on my project timeline –it was now mid-September, and the
projected recital date was the first weekend of December. I now see that a project of this scale
46
should have been fully put into motion much sooner in order to make it truly incredible, but I
was completely determined to see it through. I would create a set of Emily Dickinson’s bedroom
onstage, complete with modest props and costuming all elements fitting a staged show.
The procuring of music, a willing pianist, and materials was the easier part. I hired an
incredible local professional, Sabine Krantz, to be my collaborative pianist, and she and I began
to rehearse one or twice a week on a regular basis, increasing to three times a week or more as
the show time drew nearer. Using my memory of the view from Emily’s window, the 1850’s
view as described by the museum tour, and the maps of old Amherst on the Emily Dickinson
museum website, I designed a backdrop of nineteenth century Amherst, drawn on paper. With
the help of my father, a carpenter, as well as my mother, a teacher, this design was translated into
five seven foot plywood panels, intricately painted to represent nineteenth century Amherst.
I also designed a white window that could be moved across the stage on wheels. This
would be used as a physical representation of the times when Emily felt freedom, or a struggle to
obtain it, during the program. My father also helped me construct this piece of the set. He also
had a lot of heirloom furniture and artifacts in his house, and many of these were used to create
Emily’s desk area – complete with a chair, books (including my Dad’s own old King James
bible!) a newspaper, nib pens and a vintage inkwell. The piano/pianist were integrated into the
set rather than hidden behind it (for performance practicality as well as a desire to highlight her
incredible artistry) and a chair was placed in the crook of the piano.
During the performance, my purpose was to live as Emily in the space that I created
physically and musically onstage. Overall, I believe that what can be described as the beginning
of that process was achieved. I am proud of the way the stage looked, the quality of my program
notes in which I analyzed the poetry, and learning, memorizing, and making an emotional
47
connection with this program of music was a feat that required every bit of my mental effort and
training. I was pleased with the number of my family and friends who attended, and those who
were in the audience sincerely enjoyed it. In these ways, in my heart I do count my project as a
success.
Although I am proud of this project, at my current ability level as a singer and actress, I
am also able to admit that it was a far too ambitious project for the timeline that I crafted. In
order to present music of this difficulty at a truly professional (rather than a typical student)
level, I should have realistically had all music chosen before I left for summer vacation, and
finished preparing it while at SongFest. In reality, the program of music was not solidified until
returned back to school, and I was learning music in the fall, up until three weeks before my
recital when the music went before faculty. Now more than ever before, I am aware of the
immense effort and incredible number of steps involved in not only learning the musical aspects
of a piece, but going into the emotional aspects- creating a “One Act Play” for each text and
piece of music. Although I have taken the initial steps to learn and perform these pieces of
music, I trust that I will be perfecting them throughout my career as a singer.
I also was enormously proud of my visual/theatrical concept, but I will also admit that I
was too ambitious in this venture and did not seek as much help as I needed. My advisor
informed me that a director was needed for this production, but as time wore on, and I received
an ever increasing number of lukewarm responses (largely because my timeline included
rehearsal periods during Thanksgiving break), I became more and more convinced that I could
do it myself, writing my own stage directions and enjoying discovering what in the text could
motivate particular movements or emotions of Emily’s. In this department, I did receive some
help from my voice teacher, and had one long rehearsal where we gathered ideas, motivations,
48
and the translations of my ideas into something that would work well onstage.
However, what I had not taken into account was that I truly needed more time, as well as
a second set of eyes to help me along with this project. This aspect taught me more than ever
about the two-sided reality of performing. What you hear, feel, and see on the stage as a
performer is a completely different experience for an audience member. Perhaps a performer
may believe that their piano dynamic was quiet enough, or that the amount of inflection put in
one phrase was enough to make a difference in vocal quality from the line previous. Perhaps they
thought one gesture or move would hold significance while the other would be too gaudy. The
reality is that quite often the audience thinks the opposite.
These were the realities explained to me during a post-recital meeting with my advisor.
While she respected my efforts, she also gave me a firm and honest critique regarding them.
Although it was very difficult to hear initially, I am grateful that she shared it with me. She told
me that she thought my ideas were strong, and that if I kept working on it and sought greater
directing assistance for the next performance, she would like to watch it grow.
What this capstone project has cemented in my mind is that becoming a performer means
embracing a process of never-ending workshop. Artists work for their entire lives to perfect their
craft, and as a twenty-one year-old soprano, I cannot pretend that my voice is anything close to a
finished product. My teachers at Syracuse are still studying with their teachers, always
maintaining an open, curious mind, and constantly discovering new music to add to their
repertoires. They, like so many others artists that I also admire, are in constant search of
improvement and perfection, always striving to take their vocal technique to the next level.
When one commits to becoming an artist they commit to the lifelong pursuit of excellence, and I
am just beginning my artistic journey.
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Furthermore, it is nearly impossible to reach the highest levels of excellence regarding
any project without a spirit that is somewhat collaborative. There is time when an artist must
work alone in a practice room or a studio, doing their best to hone the techniques that they have
learned from others, but overall, the best artists seek to surround themselves with a team. It is
important to acknowledge that an important part of the artistic process is to get your work in
front of others to get a variety of opinions as to whether or not the maximum impact of your
performance has been obtained. It is not weak to consistently ask for help; in fact it is a form of
arrogance to deny yourself this tool if it is available to you.
In conclusion, the creation of truly great art is not an endeavor to be accomplished as a
side project. Any project, not matter how big or small, cannot be viewed simply as box to check
off on the to-do list. It is necessary to live with the material you are creating, and throw yourself
into a truly all-encompassing process. Upon graduation from Syracuse University, I look forward
to embracing a life as a performer, and knowing anew the necessity of absolute dedication to the
craft. I am grateful for Emily Dickinson, and my experience in creating the Escape from Amherst
project. It has taught me the true scope of what it means to craft a project from the ground up as a
performer.
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51
Table of Contents
Credits…………………………………………………………………………………………….. 3
Artist Statement ……………………………………………………………………………… 4
About the Composers …………………………………………………………………………... 5
Program List ……………………………………………………………………………………. 6
Interpretations…………………………………………………………………………………... 7
A Keen
Eye …………………………………………………………………………… 7
Quiet Insurrection
................................................................
............................................. 11
Peerless Heart ………………………………………………………………………….15
Clarity ……………………………………………………………………………………18
In Gratitude ……………………………………………………………………………………... 21
Source: heritagesurveys.com/Amherst
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Credits
Concept: Maria Whitcomb
Performers: Maria Whitcomb and Sabine Krantz
Composers: Jake Heggie, Aaron Copland, Lori Laitman
Texts: Emily Dickinson
Capstone Advisor: Dr. Kathleen Roland-Silverstein
Visual Direction: Janet Brown
Set Design and Construction: Maria Whitcomb, Lisa and Benjamin
Whitcomb
Graphic design: Marisa Frigoletto
With Funding Provided By: The Renée Crown Honors College
Source: Official Emily Dickinson Museum Website
53
Artist Statement
The “Escape from Amherst” project was conceived out of my own love of American art
song, and my desire to delve deeper into this fascinating genre. When the idea of focusing on the
genre as a whole proved to be too monumental for me, my advisor suggested that I focus my
work around a single composer or poet. I settled on Emily Dickinson, a woman whose words my
mother introduced me to.
My final decisions in terms of the musical selections were made largely through my
month studying at SongFest at Los Angeles’ Colburn School, for it was there that I fell in love
with the music sung by my colleagues, and was granted access to some music that otherwise
would have been impossible to find. I also garnered a brand new approach to performing poetic
texts, giving them personal specificity that will relate to audiences.
However, for Emily, these texts must have resonated much more deeply than with me. I
could not help but realize how little I knew about this fascinating artist, and wondered, in the
realm of text-setting, how much of an original poet’s heart and intention remains as their words
are appropriated and enhanced by music. In her letters to Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Emily
claimed that her poems were not autobiographical, but I firmly believe that something of her soul
and past remained in every word she penned.
Emily has been immortalized as a “myth”, a shy, shadow of a person clad in white, but
through biographical research and careful inspection of the following texts, I have found a way
of viewing this character in a slightly different light- a woman whose circumstances granted her
freedom rather than imprisonment. It is my hope that my work onstage will offer a creative
snapshot of Emily’s world.
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About the Composers
Jake Heggie – (b. 1961) - With a prolific output spanning over 250 songs, 8 operas, and
various works for choral, orchestral, and chamber ensembles, Jake Heggie has cemented his
status as a modern American master, earning a Guggenheim Fellowship and a horde of highprofile commissions from Houston Grand Opera, Dallas Opera, and San Francisco Opera, and
from champions of his music such as American mezzo-soprano Frederica von Stade. Newer
Every Day, the song cycle from which three pieces in this program come, was commissioned
by famed New Zealand Soprano Kiri te Kanawa, and was premiered in 2014 at the Ravinia
Festival. Other songs in this program are taken from the 1999 collection Faces of Love, one of
Heggie’s earliest publications crafted for the luminous voices of Renée Fleming, Kristin Clayton,
Carol Vaness, and Nicole Folland.
Aaron Copland – (1900-1990) – Known for the pursuit and development of a distinctly
American musical aesthetic, Aaron Copland became one of the most influential voices in music
of the 20th century. His experimentation with indigenous music of North America and fascination
with American history led to various iconic works for orchestra, such as the expansive Fanfare
for the Common Man, the exuberant El Salón México, and the ballets Billy the Kid, Rodeo, and
the 1954 Pulitzer Prize winner Appalachian Spring, commissioned by Martha Graham. His1950
song cycle Twelve Poems of Emily Dickinson was one of the composer’s few forays into
writing for solo voice and piano, and the composer hoped to create a character sketch of the
enigmatic poetess through the themes of nature, death, life, and eternity. Large parts of this
program are these songs, appropriated to fit the themes of A Keen Eye, Quiet Insurrection,
Peerless Heart, and Clarity.
Lori Laitman - (b. 1954) - Lauded for her “…music of depth and richness that connects with
the soul.” Lori Laitman’s exquisite vocal music has made her a favorite for critics and audiences
alike. Her inventive instrumental/voice combinations have filled an aching void in the American
art song repertoire, and rest of her catalog includes three operas, choral works, and over 250
compositions for solo voice and piano. Among these are over twenty settings of Emily
Dickinson, and the works in this program are taken from her cycles Between the Bliss and
Me, One Bee and Revery, In this Short Life, and Two Dickinson Songs.
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Program List
A Keen Eye
Nature, the Gentlest Mother ………Twelve Poems of Emily Dickinson……Aaron Copland
The Butterfly Upon ……… ……… One Bee and Revery …………............Lori Laitman
It Makes No Difference Abroad ……...Faces of Love………………………..Jake Heggie
There Came a Wind Like a Bugle….Twelve Poems of Emily Dickinson….. Aaron Copland
To make a Prairie ………………… One Bee and Revery………………….. Lori Laitman
Fame ………………………………...Newer Every Day………………………Jake Heggie
Quiet Insurrection
Why do they shut me out of Heaven? - Twelve Poems of Emily Dickinson-.Aaron Copland
Some Keep the Sabbath ……………. In This Short Life ………………… Lori Laitman
The world feels dusty ………… Twelve Poems of Emily Dickinson……… Aaron Copland
I felt a Funeral in my brain ……. Twelve Poems of Emily Dickinson ……. Aaron Copland
Going to Heaven! ……………. Twelve Poems of Emily Dickinson ……… Aaron Copland
Peerless Heart
If you were coming in the Fall …. ….Faces of Love………………………….Jake Heggie
As Well As Jesus – Jake Heggie ……..Faces of Love ……………………….. Jake Heggie
Heart, we will forget him …..…….Twelve Poems of Emily Dickinson……Aaron Copland
I Shall Not Live in Vain …………… Faces of Love ……………………………Jake Heggie
Clarity
Silence ………………………….. Newer Every Day ……………………… Jake Heggie
I'm Nobody, Who Are You? …….. Newer Every Day ……………………......Jake Heggie
Wider than the sky ……………....Two Dickinson Songs …………………....Lori Laitman
A Book ……………………………… Between the Bliss and Me ……………….Lori Laitman
At Last, to Be Identified! ………... Faces of Love ……………………………..Jake Heggie
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A Keen Eye
Mrs. Emily Norcross Dickinson, an active gardener, cultivated a love of nature in her
children. Thus, Emily spent many days of her life crouched behind the garden hedge, planting,
tending to the flowers in her conservatory, or simply gazing at the sky through her bedroom
window. Clearly, she inherited her mother’s green thumb and the many skills required of a
expert observer – an ability to sense subtle changes in the wind, and to consider the activities of
bees and butterflies in relation to her flowers. Like many well-bred, educated young women of
her day, she also kept a herbarium (a book containing a named collection of carefully dried
plants) among her prized possessions.
However, Emily also possessed a unique, spiritual view of the realm of nature – and
believed that the small and beautifully intricate details of the natural world, such as a butterfly’s
wing - were all expressions of God’s glory. However, this did not diminish the intensity of love
she felt for human aspects of this world - the emotions, expressions, and accomplishments of
those closest to her.
If anything, Emily’s strong perception of the natural world gave her a unique empathy for
all aspects of this planet, thus in her poetry she would attribute very human characteristics to
non-human entities, such as creatures, plants or the weather. She was also able to see distinct
similarities between occurrences in human nature, and events in the natural world, such as storms
or the changing seasons. With this mindset, she must have truly seen the world as her home. Her
only ceiling would have been the sky, not that of her small bedroom at the Dickinson homestead.
57
Nature, the gentlest
mother,
Impatient of no child,
The feeblest or the
waywardest,
Her admonition mild
In forest and the hill
By traveller is heard,
Restraining rampant
squirrel
Or too impetuous bird.
How fair her conversation,
A summer afternoon,-Her household, her
assembly;
And when the sun goes down
Her voice among the aisles
Incites the timid prayer
Of the minutest cricket,
The most unworthy flower.
When all the children
sleep
She turns as long away
As will suffice to light
her lamps;
Then, bending from the sky
With infinite affection
And infiniter care,
Her golden finger on her
lip,
Wills silence everywhere.
Using perhaps the most wellknown nature analogy in literature, this
musical text describes Mother Nature in
the truest motherly fashion: benevolent,
mild, and trusting. Her patience and
temperance are infinite, and in an almost
Christ-like fashion, she graces all of her
charges with an equal amount of
affection.
She knows her creations are
imperfect, and even expects them to
become unruly. Rather than exhibiting
disappointment or doling out punishment,
she remains unfazed, carefully
outstretching a hand to reign in the
“rampant squirrels”, “impetuous birds” or
truly, the people of the world who do so
much damage. In gratitude, all worship
her without exception, their loving
mother who puts each one to bed at
sunset.
Copland’s treatment of this text is
delicate and ingenious, creating a
universe for this character with no
consistent directions, only the daily ebbs
and flows of life. One can hear the birds
singing, the earth stirring, and the
Mother’s repeated command of calm with
every unison B Flat.
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The Butterfly upon the
Sky
That doesn’t know its
Name
And hasn’t any tax to
pay,
And hasn’t any Home
Is just as high as you
and I
And higher, I believe,
So soar away and never
sigh
And that’s the way to
It makes no difference
abroad—
The Seasons—fit—the same—
The Mornings blossom into
Noons—
And split their Pods of
Flame—
Wild flowers—kindle in the
Woods—
The Brooks slam—all the
Day—
No Black bird bates his
Banjo—
For passing Calvary—
Auto da Fe—and Judgment—
Are nothing to the Bee—
His separation from His
Rose—
In this text, the speaker considers
with amusement, admiration and rueful
wonder the carefree and resilient nature
of the butterfly. She supposes that the
most ideal humans are the same way, and
are able to easily overcome their trials in
life.
Laitman’s saturation of delicate,
high resonances and soft dynamics make
for a perfect musical photograph of a
passing butterfly.
The frustration of this text is
conveyed not only through the dashes
that consistently break up the lines, but
also in the speaker’s consistent iteration
of the same idea: when a being is
troubled, even if the rest of the world
keeps turning – their trouble remains
their sole focus in life. Even the worst
punishment would not impact the bee
(person) as much as this singular trouble
– here the absence of his beloved (Rose).
The way Heggie’s melody and
accompaniment grind and turn over each
other with the same harmonic motifs, and
rhythmic ostinatos endure through the
piano’s right hand are perfectly indicative
of the speaker’s growing exasperation
throughout.
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There came a Wind like a
Bugle,
It quivered through the
grass,
And a green chill upon the
heat
So ominous did pass.
We barred the windows and
the doors
As from an emerald ghost
The doom's electric
moccasin
That very instant passed.
On a strange mob of panting
trees
And fences fled away.
And rivers where the houses
ran
The living looked that day.
The bell within the steeple
wild
The flying tidings whirled.
How much can come
And much can go
To make a prairie it takes a
clover and one bee,
One clover, and a bee.
And revery.
The revery alone will do,
If bees are few.
Fame is a bee.
It has a songIt has a sting –
Ah, too, it has a
wing.
As much as this text is an ode to
the awe-inspiring power of Mother
Nature’s fury, it is also a ground-shaking
assertion of the speaker’s faith in the
tenacity of the human spirit. She starts
the text in terror as she watches this
fantastic “storm” take hold of her world,
threatening to uproot all that she holds
dear. However, as her descriptions grow
more detailed, her fear lessens, and she
realizes that while the grasses and trees of
the world are bending, nothing has
broken, and with difficulty, houses can be
rebuilt. The last three assert that she and
the world are both strong enough to
weather any physical or emotional storm.
Copland’s angular, incongruous
tonalities and lack of melodic line make
for seamless transitions between the
speaker’s extreme fear and intense
fortitude, and the wild accompaniment is
every bit the tempestuous storm.
One has only truly found peace
when it exists solely in the mind of the
beholder, unaided by personal
surroundings. Here the speaker seeks
internal quiet akin to the serenity she
feels outdoors, and finds in a humorous
twist they are one and the same.
Laitman’s flowing, familiar melody,
juxtaposed with a musical joke, reflects
this sentiment perfectly.
Fame is a difficult, multifaceted
principle, with sweetness in the potential
for greatness, and sourness in its allconsuming nature. Similarly, a bee makes
honey, but also produces venom that is
painful when one is stung.
Clearly Heggie wanted to
emphasize the later part of this analogy,
changing the place of “wing” and “sting” in
his setting.
60
Quiet Insurrection
Born into an upper middle class woman in pre-Victorian New England, Emily Dickinson
was practically destined for a life of complacent obedience. While outwardly playing the part of
dutiful daughter and sister, Emily stoked radical fires in her soul.
Upon her death, Emily’s
poems were found not only to defy many conventions of modern poetry in their construction, but
also to be full of rebellious fire. Emily lived through these poems, died through them as she
wrote, and asked even the most taboo questions of the day with a steady hand. Emily was in
disagreement with many of the institutions of her time, particularly the Civil War (1864 began
her most prolific period of writing) and the Protestant Church. Emily even went so far as to
question God about his practices through her poetry, an act that would have seemed heretical in
her day.
Emily truly loved the world, but it was very strange to her. She could not reconcile a life
where local boys enlisted to fight for a cause, only to have their names appear in the newspapers
weeks later. She could not abide the real terror felt by the Massachusetts countryside after the
Battle of Gettysburg, the fear of residents that their small Northern town would be next.
Above all, Emily could not believe entirely in a God who would permit such atrocities
and who snatched from her two dear friends, Leonard Humphries and Benjamin Newton in their
prime of life. Therefore, she found it even more difficult to communicate with him through the
stiff lens of Church ritual. She questioned God on her own terms, about his love for the world,
and his love for herself, a not-so-meek presence before him.
61
Why — do they shut Me out of
Heaven?
Did I sing — too loud?
But — I can sing a little "Minor"
Timid as a Bird!
Wouldn't the Angels try me —
Just — once — more —
Just — see — if I troubled them —
But don't — shut the door!
Oh, if I — were the Gentleman
In the "White Robe" —
And they — were the little Hand —
that knocked —
Could — I — forbid?
Some keep the Sabbath going to
Church –
I keep it, staying at Home –
With a Bobolink for a Chorister –
And an Orchard, for a Dome –
Some keep the Sabbath in Surplice
–
I, just wear my Wings –
And instead of tolling the Bell,
for Church,
Our little Sexton – sings.
God preaches, a noted Clergyman –
And the sermon is never long,
So instead of getting to Heaven,
Here, our speaker grapples with the
conflicted manner in which she view herself with
respect to her creator. In some respects she is
defiant, resentful that there seems to a set of
guidelines in order to be considered an admirable
follower of God’s word.
In other respects our speaker views
herself as a sinner, and is self-conscious before
the lord about this trait. She is a sinner in that she
questions and doubts the presence of God, and
she also questions her own worthiness to stand
before him. She views herself as a meek soul,
and since she has given little to the world, she
doubts that God will want to accept her.
Copland declamatory, recitative-like style
of composition for the singer, with jagged
intervals, sparse accompaniment, and intense
variations in dynamics provide the singer with
the dramatic tools needed to alternately
challenge and beseech her creator.
Here, our speaker emphasizes the
inherently spiritual part of her nature, asserting
that she does not require the institution of a
church or the confines of traditional religious
practice to solidify her relationship with God.
It is not the rituals of the church that bring her
closer to God but rather the miracle of the blue
of the sky, or the complexity of a leaf.
Laitman’s carefree singsong melody
and spritely accompaniment highlight the
lighthearted simplicity in these sentiments, and
enable a straightforward delivery of the text.
62 The World—feels Dusty
When We stop to Die—
We want the Dew—then—
Honors—taste dry—
Flags—vex a Dying face—
But the least Fan
Stirred by a friend's
Hand—
Cools—like the Rain—
Mine be the Ministry
When they Thirst comes—
And Hybla Balms—
Dews of Thessaly, to
fetch—
I felt a Funeral, in my Brain,
And Mourners to and fro
Kept treading - treading - till
it seemed
That Sense was breaking through
And when they all were seated,
A Service, like a Drum Kept beating - beating - till I
thought
My mind was going numb And then I heard them lift a Box
And creak across my Soul
With those same Boots of Lead,
again,
Then Space - began to toll,
As all the Heavens were a Bell,
And Being, but an Ear,
And I, and Silence, some strange
Race,
Wrecked, solitary, here -
The images of dust, death, flags
and honors call forth ideas of war, and
this text stands clearly as a eulogy for
those who died in vain. The grief felt by
the speaker is immense here, and the
weight and injustice of death weighs
heavily on her mind. Stirred to act, she
discovers that her role is only to soothe
those who suffer from loss.
The images of “Hybla balms”
and “Dews of Thessaly” are allusions to
ancient Greek and Sicilian images of
comfort that add an element of antiquity
to the poem, by Copland chooses in his
setting not only to reverse the last two
lines, but to replace the word “Hybla”
with “holy” and “Thessaly” with
“thyself”, removing these images from
the poem entirely.
This text is the fervent, darkly
frustrated chronicle of the speaker’s
descent into madness. Certain aspects of
her world are overwhelming and
incongruous, among them death,
destruction, war and the inhumanity of
others.
Despite this, her day –to –day life
proceeds with a measured, predictable,
infuriating tread, as reliable as the tread of
mourners at a funeral, or the tolling of a
bell.
Her helplessness to change her
situation is another aspect of her life that
our speaker finds unbearable, concluding
that her only escape from her life is to
leave it entirely. The reality of suicide is
voiced in the last stanza.
Copland’s measured bass ostinatos
and harsh chromatic passages make for a
devastating funeral march that captures the
spirit of the text perfectly. However, he
chooses to omit the last stanza from his
setting, creating a bleak musical ending
without the aid of suicide.
63
Going to heaven!
I don’t know when,
Pray do not ask me how,—
Indeed, I ’m too astonished
To think of answering you!
Going to heaven!—
How dim it sounds!
And yet it will be done
As sure as flocks go home at
night
Unto the shepherd’s arm!
Perhaps you ’re going too!
Who knows?
If you should get there
first,
Save just a little place for
me
Close to the two I lost!
The smallest “robe” will fit
me,
And just a bit of “crown”;
For you know we do not mind
our dress
When we are going home.
I ’m glad I don’t believe
it,
For it would stop my breath,
And I ’d like to look a
little more
At such a curious earth!
I am glad they did believe
it
Whom I have never found
Since the mighty autumn
afternoon
I left them in the ground.
The speaker here grapples with her
relationship with God from a variety of different
angles. In the first stanza, she ricochets between
her awe and fear of God’s great majesty, and the
other image that she would prefer to be true – that
of the gentle shepherd guiding his flocks through
the world. The prospect of eternity, the life after
death is also an idea that both excites the speaker
and frightens her. She realizes it is necessary to
fear God enough to be governed by him, and to
love him enough to have a desire to follow him.
Followers of religion also must solidify
their relationship to sin. Our speaker sees herself
as a meek presence before God, and is somewhat
insecure as to her place in the world. She has
perhaps committed small sins in the eyes of the
world that seem large in her own, and in her
request for the smallest “robe” and “a bit of
“crown””, she prays that these will not forego her
admission into her “home” of the kingdom of
heaven, alongside those who have been taken from
her before.
The last mental reconciliation needed to
establish a true following in religion is an
acceptance of the idea of death. Though our
speaker may not know her place in the world, she
can admit that she loves it, and the notion that she
will one day have to leave it is exceedingly
difficult for her to bear. She cannot reconcile a
God who would put someone in this world only to
take them out. Her final resolution is that the great
theological concerns of God, life, death, and
heaven are too monumental for her to believe at
this moment in time.
These are the balances that our speaker is
currently trying to find in her mind, and Copland’s
indecisive key and meter changes, and abrupt
switch from a bounding refrain to a emotional halt.
64
Peerless Heart
Emily has garnered a reputation for being something of a loner, and while the poetess
may have developed a certain reluctance to receive company in her later years, the vision of a
cold, withdrawn, disassociated Emily does not seem to equate with the character presented here.
One of Emily’s defining traits was a strong, passionate, even romantic heart that was prone to
quick, sometimes unfounded attachment.
How did a girl bred in a proper, staunch, New England fashion manage to develop this
emotional nature? Perhaps it began with her love of romantic English Victorian literature, of
George Eliot, Thomas Hardy and in particular the Brontë sisters. Perhaps it was her intense
loyalty to her friends and family, particularly to her father Edward Dickinson, but also to the
dozens of slight acquaintances with whom she built strong relationships through letter writing.
Stories also abound about the various potential love interests that might have presented
themselves to Emily over the years, but Emily never indulged these pangs of romance, and
perhaps this provided her with even more inspiration for writing.
Though Emily’s worldview may have been quite small, her capacity for love and
kindness proved to be enormous. The passion of Emily’s peerless heart shone through in her
poems, as well as in her one small corner of the universe in which she filled her home and letters
with love and comfort. Emily knew that true love does not always constitute great acts, but
sometimes consists of little actions that make the world more secure, one little life at a time. It
was ultimately this understanding that allowed Emily to feel secure in the life she chose for
herself, and ultimately to understand all types of love through intense empathy.
If you were coming in the Fall
I’d brush the Summer by
With half a smile, and half a
spurn,
As Housewives do, a Fly.
If I could see you in a year,
I’d wind the months in ballsAnd put them each in separate
Drawers,
For fear the numbers fuse
If only Centuries, delayed,
I’d count them on my Hand,
Subtracting, till my fingers
dropped
Into Van Dieman’s Land.
If certain, when this life was
outThat yours and mine, should be
I’d toss it yonder, like a Rind,
And take EternityBut now, uncertain of the length
Of this, that is between,
It goads me, like the Goblin
BeeThat will not state - its sting
This speaker displays an excitement
that is almost childlike as she awaits a chance
reunion with a loved one. The magnitude of the
speaker’s emotion is extreme, her love and
devotion are so that there is almost as much joy
in the anticipation of the meeting as in the
meeting itself.
In her rash excitement, she draws out
the waiting longer with every verse, first
seasons, then years, and on two separate
occasions, the piano stops its frantic whirling
for her bold declaration that centuries could
pass and still she would wait for this sweet
return. Even eternity does not seem too long at
first, and she waxes into a blissful, romantic
bubble of blind devotion with the music’s
repeated iterations of the phrase “And take
eternity.”
However, eventually it is revealed that
the text truly operates around the idea of “If”.
“If” is the word that commences each of the
first four verses, but the speaker is so blinded
by her imagined joy, that the gravity of this
“If” does not hit her full force until the final
verse.
At this time, her mood drops into
devastating anxiety, and in a moment of lost
innocence, she realizes that the love may never
return, and her passions may have been
unfounded. However, the speaker is not
allowed the luxury of a quick, definitive,
ending, of an expediency of heartbreak. This
same anticipation that previously sent her into
a whirlwind of mad joy now “goads” her “like
the goblin bee”, a force that is intangible, but
nonetheless heartbreaking and anxiety
inducing.
65
A more defiant view of love – having much to do
with the idea of sacrifice, is present in this text. To adapt
to the tone of her poem, Dickinson chooses to depart
So well that I can live without –
I love thee – then How well is that? from her usual transcendent regard of God and instead
uses holy references to display the fortitude, pride and
As well as Jesus?
Prove it me
perhaps misguided stoicism in the speaker.
That He – loved Men –
There is arrogance in the speaker, but there is
As I – Love thee –
also the deepest sincerity that lends this poetry a strong
undertone of heartbreak, desperation, and devotion. This
poem is a strong example of Dickinson’s tendency
towards emotional economy-an ability to pack a
tremendous amount of meaning into very few words.
Releasing this love is difficult for the speaker, perhaps
they are watching a family member die, or else saying
goodbye to their first love.
66
Heart, we will forget
him!
You and I to-night!
You may forget the
warmth he gave,
I will forget the light.
When you have done, pray
tell me,
That I my thoughts may
dim
Haste! lest while you’re
lagging,
I may remember him!
If I can stop one
Heart from breaking
I shall not live in
vain
If I can ease one Life
the Aching
Or cool one Pain
Or helping one
fainting Robin
Unto his Nest again
I shall not live in
vain
When a relationship ultimately ends, there are
stages of grieving that one goes through in order to
reestablish normalcy in their life. There is unbridled grief,
the emotional tumult that one encounters immediately
after losing a loved one, be it through a death, a departure,
or a conflict, but after there are no more tears, there is
simply loss.
Readjusting to a life without this person may be so
difficult for the speaker, that even if she wants to move
on, the smallest occurrence can trigger a memory that sets
her back emotionally, related here by Copland’s
heartbreaking rents in tonality. While she uses affirming,
insistent language to reassure herself, such as “we will
forget him” she is doubtful that her words are true. With
the closing line, “Haste! lest while you’re lagging,/I may
remember him.” she pleas to be released from the
memories that haunt her.
The speaker here tells of love in one of its purest
forms – the desire to improve the life of another through
kindness and understanding. Dickinson does not succumb to
heroic language here, instead adopting a tone simultaneously
gentle and resolute. The hopeful, pure attitude of this
speaker conveys the belief that this particular brand of lovelove for love’s sake is the sole purpose of all of humankind.
It is not the amount of love that one is able to give that
matters, rather that something was given at all. Some will
follow the example of Christ and other prophets by devoting
their lives to many. Others will only give their whole souls to
one person, for a short period of time, making Heggie’s
emphasis of the word “one” in this setting particularly
intelligent. Each contribution is unique and beautiful, and
equally meaningful in the giver’s context. It is this type of
devotion alone that brings about the repeated declaration “I
shall not live in Vain.”
67
Clarity
The greatest way in which Emily Dickinson sought and found freedom in her outwardly
sheltered life was through her stoic sense of self. Rather than choosing to be satisfied with a selfimage determined by others- a common plague of women in the Victorian era, Emily took
strength in her attributes. She saw herself as a humble artist, poet, and intellectual, with a quiet
strength and a healthy sense of wonder that could sustain her despite bouts of human self-doubt.
She knew the vast scope of her mind, and the importance of her voice.
Emily only sought recognition for her poems once, when she sent them to Thomas
Wentworth Higginson, a prolific writer who was a frequent contributor to the Atlantic Monthly, a
prominent publication of the time. His April 1862 article “Letter to a Young Contributor”
inspired Emily, and she sent four poems to the author, along with a meek inquiry as to whether
or not they would be considered suitable for publication. Higginson’s response was kind but
critical, and he sent her suggestions for edits to her poetry, beginning a friendship that was to
endure until her death in 1886.
Had Dickinson followed Higginson’s advice, her life might have been quite different.
Higginson was no stranger to the task of lifting talented young writers from obscurity into
prominence. However, Emily never adjusted a single line or lack of rhyme to adhere to her
mentor’s suggestions. She perhaps took a bit of pride in her eccentricity, and had no interest in
being paraded around the literary elite of Boston as an up-and-coming protégée. Higginson
realized the enduring nature of her style only after her death-when he took on the role of coeditor of the first two collections of her poetry.
68
Silence is all we
dread
There’s Ransom in a
Voice - But Silence is
Infinity
Himself have not a
face.
This poem has been subject to a religious
interpretation by scholars, but it also serves as a
strong indicator of Dickinson’s self-possession and
sense of identity. Humans live with the inherent
desire to be heard, and often this is not accomplished
until their purpose, or “voice” is found. One’s
purpose is considered valuable, and sometimes will
lead to a life beyond death, as a family endures
through generations, or a business or a great work of
art endures through the centuries.
However, one must not go through life
believing in the right to such a monumental presence
in the world. Even the greatest success will someday
fade into a faceless oblivion, and only God will
know the individual owner of each small victory,
each small life in this world.
The speaker here clearly asserts her place,
but also displays a calm acceptance that it will not be
hers forever. All that is to be done is to carry out the
small work one person can do, and Emily exercised
this belief through her humble faith and in her
writing. Heggie’s ethereal accompaniment creates
this transcendent world that the speaker believes to
herself to be passing through, and while her voice
may occasionally rise out of the texture, it eventually
fades away into the “Infinity.”
In this innocent and cheeky commentary on
modern society, the speaker revels in her own
eccentricities, and how they make her different from a
typical conformist. Many things may cause a person to
be ostracized by others, but few people are so different
that they will not one day find someone else just like
themselves.
How dreary- to be –Somebody!
When this occurs, the fun lies in laughing at
How public- like a Frogthose who would rather falsely blend in with the masses
To tell one’s name -the
than allow their own true beauty to shine through – one
livelong Junemay find the latter option to be less exhausting than
To an admiring Bog!
keeping up with the garish waltz of conformism that
Heggie aptly illustrates with a jagged, awkward
emphasis in the wrong places within the musical phrases
at the bridge.
I’m Nobody! who are you?
Are you –Nobody - Too?
Then, there’s a pair of us!
Don’t tell! they’d advertise,
you know.
69
The Brain-is wider than the
SkyFor — put them side by side –
The one the other will
contain
With ease-and You –beside
The Brain is deeper than the
Sea
For- hold them- Blue to BlueThe one the other will
absorbAs Sponges-Buckets doThe Brain is just the weight
of GodFor-heft them- Pound for
PoundAnd they will differ- if they
doAs Syllable from Sound
He ate and drank the
precious words,
His spirit grew robust;
He knew no more that he was
poor,
Nor that his frame was
dust.
He danced along the dingy
days,
And this bequest of wings
Was but a book. What
liberty
At last - to be identified!
At last – the lamps upon thy
side –
The rest of Life – to seePast Midnight - Past the Morning
Star –
Past Sunrise – Ah, what Leagues
there were –
Between Our Feet – and Day!
Each individual human has an enormous
capacity for consciousness, for intelligence, for memory
and for talents. Perhaps that is the fundamental thing
that makes all human minds alike- that their abilities of
understanding span far beyond each human’s capacity
for differentiation and self-identity.
Emily may not have had an extensive education
in neurology, but she understood that she was an
intelligent, conscious being, and was consistently
humbled by her ability to learn, grow, and produce
ideas. Furthermore, she was humbled by the fact that
other human minds- greater and lesser than her own –
held the same capabilities. Laitman’s meandering
melody and accompaniment never seem to settle on one
key, sonically creating the vastness of space that so
astounds the speaker.
The ultimate escape for a true intellectual
is that of a book. Responsibilities and cares are
ignored or forgotten, and the world fades away in
the thrill of a story or of discovery.
Perhaps this “bequest of wings”
precluded Emily’s need in her eyes for the
traditional sense of “freedom”, which would
have involved mobility or independence. The
music in Laitman’s setting is irrepressible and
uncontainable, threatening to bubble over as the
speaker’s jubilance sets her free.
This expressive, explosive text is a being’s cry
of jubilation as the whole of life – her purpose, destiny,
and desires are laid out before her in splendid glory.
The speaker may have just met the love of her life,
finished her favorite book, or written her finest poem –
regardless, she feels no question of her path – and has
complete faith in the winding journey that her life may
take to obtain her end. These not-so-quiet words
represent Emily’s quiet faith as the queen of her chosen
kingdom – her little home in Amherst.
70
In Gratitude
Renée Crown University Honors College
Sabine Krantz
Lisa Whitcomb
Ben Whitcomb
Dr. Kathleen Roland-Silverstein
Janet Brown
Michelle Taylor
Jake Heggie
Edwin Cahill
Kathleen Haddock
Stephen Kuusisto
Kate Hanson
Karen Hall
Jolynn Parker
Samir Malovic
Jonathan English
Dr. John Warren
Dr. Joseph Downing
Marisa Frigoletto
SongFest
71
Stage Directions
(Stage is set with charming pieces indicative of the world that would have been most familiar to
Emily Dickinson, circa 1864 – the start of her most prolific writing period. The background
scenery is made up of five panels, together displaying Amherst on the rolling Berkshires, and
they are described them as they stand Stage right (SR) to stage left (SL). The first displaying
pastures and a church, the second houses, a gate, and the beginnings of a garden, which extends
to the third panel, end next to a conservatory. A large tree, showing sigs of autumn is also
featured on the third panel. The fourth panel displays pine trees, more houses, and the distinct
chapel of Amherst College, while the Amherst cemetery dominates the fifth and final panel.
The piano is firmly anchored stage right, and a cushioned wooden chair is located just stage left
of the piano’s crook. Slightly right of center to the left of the chair and piano is a movable white
window attached to a sill, which the actor/singer will use to change perspectives as Emily moves
in or out of doors. In the center a space is left in which the actor/singer can move about, or stand
to declaim a particularly straightforward text.
Furthest to the left is another cushioned wooden chair with a small writing desk in front of it. On
this desk, there is an inkwell and pen on the right downstage corner, with some paper and an
unopened letter underneath it. On the left downstage corner there are three books. These are a
journal on the bottom, above, a novel, and above that, a bible. The desk has a lower shelf, on
which is located a newspaper.
Emily enters downstage left from a visible staircase as the intro for “Nature, the Gentlest Mother
begins. She is wearing a simple white housedress, white stockings and black women’s shoes. Her
hair is done in a simple low chignon, identical to the iconic 1847 daguerreotype. She crosses
slowly to window happily and wondrously contemplating the sounds of the birds, and stands at
the window – looking out.)
Emily:
Nature the gentlest mother is,
Impatient of no child,
The feeblest or the waywardest.
Her admonition mild
In forest and the hill (peeks SR side, turns frame slightly, growing excited)
By traveller be heard,
Restraining rampant squirrel (completes window turn for illusion of going outside)
Or too impetuous bird.
How fair her conversation (crosses in front of window, remaining relatively stage right)
A summer afternoon,
Her household her assembly;
And when the sun go down, (The excitement of nightfall thrills her- leans on window)
72
Her voice among the aisles
Incite the timid prayer
Of the minutest cricket,
The most unworthy flower. (returns inside, spinning window during piano tremolos)
When all the children sleep, (looks calmly out the window, similar to at start of song)
She turns as long away
As will suffice to light her lamps,
Then bending from the sky (fingers the panes of the window lovingly)
With infinite affection
An infiniter care,
Her golden finger on her lip, (lays head against pane on SL side)
Wills silence everywhere. (Calmly closes eyes as if in happy sleep)
(With first note of intro comes in for “The Butterfly Upon” Emily’s eyes open)
The Butterfly upon the Sky, (looks out of window, but more upward fashion than before,
That doesn't know its Name as if following a butterfly)
And hasn't any tax to pay
And hasn't any Home
Is just as high as you and I, (follows the butterfly with eyes still)
And higher, I believe,
So soar away and never sigh
And that's the way to grieve— (Mellow and contemplative, goes to SR chair and sits)
It makes no difference abroad—
The Seasons—fit—the same—
The Mornings blossom into Noons—
And split their Pods of Flame—
Wild flowers—kindle in the Woods—
The Brooks slam—all the Day— (slow rises from chair, paces from window to chair)
No Black bird bates his Banjo—
For passing Calvary—
(turns window flat front during interlude)
Auto da Fe—and Judgment—
Are nothing to the Bee—
His separation from His Rose— (looks out of window in exasperation, hands on sill)
To Him—sums Misery— (places fist under chin and leans on window)
(holds pose for part of postlude, but eventually angles window towards SR. Still, she looks out
and suddenly her eyes widen on the first chord of “There Came a Wind like a Bugle)
73
There came a Wind like a Bugle – (terrified, staring out window)
It quivered through the Grass
(ducks under sill)
And a Green Chill upon the Heat
(slowly rises up until in peeking position)
So ominous did pass
We barred the Windows and the Doors (Grabs panes of windows)
As from an Emerald Ghost The Doom's electric Moccasin
The very instant passed – (slowly releases hands from window)
On a strange Mob of panting Trees (slowly backs away from window until center stage)
And Fences fled away
And Rivers where the Houses ran
Those looked that lived - that Day - (slowly regains composure, fear fades to wonder)
The Bell within the steeple wild
The flying tidings whirled How much can come (resolute and now strong, faces front)
And much can go,
And yet abide the World!
(Pause about five seconds, Emily creeps slowly to window and peers out anew, relieved that the
storm has passed. Gazes calmly out for introduction of “To Make a Prarie”)
To make a prairie it takes a clover and one bee, (Remains staring calmly out of window
One clover, and a bee.
And revery.
(Angles window slightly to front during interlude, leans dreamily against stage left side)
The revery alone will do,
If bees are few.
(Shakes head in sudden startled irritation with first chord of “Fame”, as if a bee has just been
felt buzzing near her ear)
Fame is a bee. (tilts head up, following bee with her eyes in an annoyed fashion)
It has a song— (looks away from bee, becoming thoughtful)
It has a wing— (looks again, focusing on corner of pane where bee has landed)
Ah…..
(Tries to reach up to shoo bee from the corner)
Ouch!
(draws back hand in pain, quickly turns from window, walking SL)
too, it has a sting. (examines finger, sucking it ruefully during postlude, reaches stage left and
sits in chair)
(Piano waits. Whilst still in chair, Emily reaches over to pile of books, first picking up the Bible.
She quickly becomes engrossed, following the passages with her finger, until she suddenly stops,
upset by the passage she has just read. She rises, agitated, still staring at the book. She finally
grows incensed, snapping the book shut, and slamming it down on the desk.)
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Why — do they shut Me out of Heaven? (exasperated,)
Did I sing — too loud? (snarls, stares to SR as if through window, expression softens)
But — I can sing a little "Minor"
Timid as a Bird! (almost apologetically)
Wouldn't the Angels try me — (leaves Bible, begins slowly, intensely to cross to window)
Just — once — more —
Just — see — if I troubled them — (reaches window at last)
But don't — shut the door! (Grabs desperately at pane)
(During interlude slowly lets hands slip down and turns away from window, thoughtfully walking
toward center)
Oh, if I — were the Gentleman
In the "White Robe" — (fingers dress)
And they — were the little Hand — that knocked — (looks toward windows again, looks away
during chord.)
Could — I — forbid? (center, questioning)
Why – do they shut Me out of Heaven? (Desperate)
Did I sing – too loud? (begging, looks anguished at sky, walks away to desk SL)
(There is a longer pause as her head hangs down whilst standing at desk. Gradually she picks up
her head and looks toward window thoughtfully, cuing the pianist to begin “Some Keep the
Sabbath”)
Some keep the Sabbath going to Church—
I keep it, staying at Home— (straightens up fully)
With a Bobolink for a Chorister—
And an Orchard, for a Dome—
(During this short interlude tears gaze from window to Bible on table in front of her)
Some keep the Sabbath in Surplice— (picks up Bible without opening it)
I just wear my Wings— (turns it over in her hands)
And instead of tolling the Bell, for Church,
Our little Sexton—sings. (smiles sweetly at Bible, puts it down on the desk)
God preaches, a noted Clergyman—
And the sermon is never long, (Pulls out chair as if to sit)
So instead of getting to Heaven, at last— (sits at end of phrase)
I’m going, all along. (peacefully relaxes and picks up paper)
(Slight pause, perhaps five seconds while her expression shifts again into one of worry. With the
first chords of “The World Feels Dusty” she rises, and begins slowly pacing between the desk
and the window while reading the paper.)
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The World—feels Dusty
When We stop to Die—
We want the Dew—then—
Honors—taste dry— (tears gaze up from paper makes way to center)
Flags—vex a Dying face— (center, anguished)
But the least Fan (folds paper)
Stirred by a friend's Hand—
Cools—like the Rain— (slowly makes way to window during interlude)
Mine be the Ministry (trying to be brave, staring out window, letting paper drop to side)
When they Thirst comes—
Dews of Thyself, to fetch— (turns away from window and walks back to desk)
And Holy Balms – (seats herself, shaking head)
(Emily puts paper down on lower part of desk, and shifts into a melancholy position of chin in
hands. As the hammering introduction of “I Felt a Funeral in my Brain” begins, her hands slip
to cradle her head and her look slips into one of hopelessness.)
I felt a Funeral, in my Brain,
And Mourners to and fro
Kept treading - treading - till it seemed (lays hands flat on desk)
That Sense was breaking through –
And when they all were seated,
A Service, like a Drum Kept beating - beating - till I thought (hands go to head again, elbows on desk)
My mind was going numb –
(Slowly lays hands flat on desk again pushes chair out and rises)
And then I heard them lift a Box
(Slowly rises)
And creak across my Soul
With those same Boots of Lead, again,
Then Space - began to toll,
As all the Heavens were a Bell,
(straightens up completely)
And Being, but an Ear,
(sits down hard on “ear”)
And I, and Silence, some strange Race,
Wrecked, solitary, here – (dejected and hopeless leans back in chair)
(After the last chord fades away, there is a slight pause during which Emily reaches for the
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bible again, opening it with some trepidation. She grows engrossed again, and this time, finds a
passage that pleases her, and she stands quickly, cuing the piano to begin)
Going to Heaven
Going to Heaven!
I don’t know when, (pacing around desk)
Pray do not ask me how – (slowly begins to move away from desk, SR, Bible still in hand)
Indeed, I’m too astonished
To think of answering you!
Going to Heaven Going to Heaven!
How dim it sounds! (Halts center, regards closed Bible with a shred of doubt,)
And yet it will be done
As sure as flocks go home at night, (contemplating, crosses in front of window)
Unto the shepherd’s arm!
Perhaps you’re going too! (Halts, just before chair SR)
Who knows? (sits, looking thoughtful during interlude, rises as she delivers next line)
If you should get there first,
Save just a little place for me
Close to the two I lost!
The smallest “robe” will fit me
And just a bit of “crown”
For you know we do not mind our dress
When we are going home. (Reaches window)
Going to Heaven, (Halts, center)
Going to Heaven!
(takes deep, contemplative breath)
I’m glad I don’t believe it,
For it would stop my breath, (intensely)
And I’d like to look a little more (resumes movement walking SL)
At such a curious earth!
I am glad they did believe it (Halts, at last at desk)
Whom I have never found
Since the mighty autumn afternoon, (looks slightly upstage, regarding tombstones)
I left them in the ground.
(During postlude, Emily lies closed Bible on desk, fingering its edges before halfheartedly r
reaching for the closed letter. There is a thirty seconds pause between the songs as Emily opens
the letter. As she reads, her expression instantly changes, and she gasps, which is the cue for the
piano to sound first chord of “If you were coming in the Fall”)
If you were coming in the Fall, (looks up, face filled with joy)
If you were coming in the Fall, (crosses quickly to slight left of center, by autumn tree)
I'd brush the Summer by
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With half a smile, and half a spurn,
As Housewives do, a Fly.
If I could see you in a year, (paces back to desk, places letter down as if to calm herself)
I'd wind the months in balls--And put them each in separate Drawers,
For fear the numbers fuse--- (snatches letter up)
If only Centuries, delayed, (hugs it to her chest)
I'd count them on my Hand,
Subtracting, til my fingers dropped
Into Van Dieman's Land,
(Eagerly crosses to center during interlude)
If certain, when this life was out--- (Halts center)
That yours and mine, should be (Holds letter out before her, arms, stretched out straight)
I'd toss it yonder, like a Rind, (folds letter in half, and strolls care-free to window)
And take Eternity--- (eagerly stares out, as if expecting someone)
And take Eternity –
And take Eternity – (leans against SL side of pane, smiling blissfully)
Eternity… (expression gradually changes to doubt)
But, now, uncertain of the length (uncertainly unfolds letter)
Of this, that is between, (reads it, walking slowly back to desk)
It goads me, like the Goblin Bee--That will not state--- its sting. (reaches desk, places letter down face-up, crumples edges in her
fists.)
(Fades into utter despair as the song ends. As the next begins, she dejectedly folds up letter, puts
it back in the envelope, and looking up as if she has something important to say to someone,
crosses to center to deliver her declaration. Remains still for entirety of this song.)
So well that I can live without—
I love thee—then How well is that?
As well as Jesus?
Prove it me
That He—loved Men—
As I—love thee—
(Does not move, but it is clear that she has lost the fight. Does not break hopeless gaze front as
the next song begins)
Heart! We will forget him!
You and I — tonight!
You may forget the warmth he gave — (Slowly turns towards window SR)
I will forget the light! (stretches out arm towards window, quivering, lets it fall)
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When you have done, pray tell me (continues walking SR towards chair)
That I, my thoughts may dim! (Sits after “dim”)
Haste! lest while you're lagging (brokenly pulls legs up to chair, under her dress)
I remember him!
(Pause about thirty seconds after postlude finishes)
If I can stop one Heart from breaking (Still curled on chair, but expression changes.)
I shall not live in vain (As if to give herself courage)
If I can ease one Life the Aching
Or cool one Pain (shakily begins to put legs on the floor)
Or help one fainting Robin
Unto his Nest again (Holds sides of chair, in attempt to straighten her seat)
I shall not live in Vain. (looks resolutely forward)
(During interlude, Emily slowly rises from chair, and gaining courage, makes her way to center,
delivering the rest of the text in this manner, and gaining resolution all the while)
If I can stop one Heart from breaking
I shall not live in vain
If I can ease one Life the Aching
Or cool one Pain
Or help one fainting Robin
Unto his Nest again
I shall not live in Vain
(Another slight pause as Emily holds stance until the end of the song. Calmer, she walks back
towards SR chair and stands by it during prelude to “Silence” with a bowed head.)
Silence is all we dread. (Begins quietly, picks up head)
There's Ransom in a Voice – (Resolutely moves from chair to SR side of window)
But Silence is Infinity. (turns it slightly SR)
Himself have not a face. (leans calmly against window)
Ah…..
(looks at last as if she has found serenity during final vocalise. During prelude of next, she fixes
her stance to be straighter, looking slightly more mischievous)
I'm nobody! Who are you?
Are you nobody, too?
Then there's a pair of us -- don't tell! (steps away from window, jauntily crosses to center)
They'd advertise –
You know! (Pauses, giggles slightly)
How dreary to be somebody! (continues crossing SL to desk)
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How public like a frog
To tell one's name the livelong June
To an admiring bog! (reaches desk, places hands down firmly on “bog”)
La dee dah... (putters around desk, shaking head, moving journal to middle of desk)
You know – (Pauses her fussing, looks knowingly out front)
(sits during prelude of following song)
The Brain—is wider than the Sky— (opens journal)
For—put them side by side—
The one the other will contain
With ease—and You—beside—
(opens inkwell, dips and shakes pen contemplating what to write)
The Brain is deeper than the sea—
For—hold them—Blue to Blue—
The one the other will absorb—
As Sponges—Buckets—do— (begins to write)
The Brain is just the weight of God— (writing)
For—Heft them—Pound for Pound—
And they will differ—if they do—
As Syllable from Sound— (pauses, looking up and deeply considers thought)
As Syllable from Sound – (smiles)
(calmly resumes and finishes writing during interlude, shakes out pen, places it next to inkwell,
leaning back and relaxing.)
And they will differ- if they do He ate and drank the precious Words – (sits up straighter, excitedly reaches for book)
His Spirit grew robust – (pushes out chair and stands by desk)
He knew no more that he was poor,
Nor that his frame was Dust – (pulls book closer to chest)
He danced along the dingy Days (opens it, enraptured.)
And this Bequest of Wings
Was but a Book – (smiles, places book down, and crosses to center)
What Liberty
A loosened spirit brings – (center, and remains so to deliver last text.)
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At last, to be identified!
At last, the lamps upon thy side
The rest of Life to see!
(Carefully considers implication of her words, moves further downstage)
Past Midnight! Past the Morning Star!
Past Sunrise!
Ah, What leagues there were
Between our feet, and Day!
(Curtain)
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Explanation of Onstage Visual Presentation
(Above: Emily Dickinson’s Bedroom restoration in Amherst museum)
Her love of being alone up in her room was associated with her feeling for a key, which signified freedom from interruption and
the social prevention that beset her downstairs. She would stand looking down, one hand raised, thumb and forefinger closed on
an imaginary key, and say, with a quick turn of her wrist, "It's just a turn--and freedom, Matty!”
Words of Emily Dickinson’s niece-Martha Dickinson Bianchi
Emily Dickinson’s bedroom was not only the site of her greatest literary achievements,
but a place where she spent most of her time throughout her life. It was not to her a confinement,
but freedom- an ideal, simple, comfortable setting for a woman who was unapologetic about her
way of life.
I believe that a room says much about the man or woman who inhabits it, and what
strikes me the most about this dwelling is that it is open, homey, uncluttered, and filled with
natural light. Though the above picture is a restoration and lacks the appearance of certain
“lived-in elements” the room does not lend itself to the vision of an inhabitant with a delicate
constitution or an unquiet mind. Rather, it is easy to imagine a being equipped with calm and
prudence, who could perhaps use her sparse surroundings as a canvas for the imagination.
Even today, Amherst, Massachusetts is not a city that is considered to be overdeveloped,
but in the nineteenth century, the nature of New England offered much inspiration to Emily. She
had a view of trees and flowers outside of her window, and these might have encouraged her
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keen powers of observation and deep affinity for nature. Beyond her home she saw pastures, the
newly established Amherst College, and the expansive town graveyard- impressing an image of
mortality and encouraging philosophical musings (and arousing questions) about religion, war,
death, and human nature. Her little desk is where she formed many of her strongest attachments
through letter writing, and formed a beautiful idea of love in her mind by reading Victorian
literature. It was also at this little desk that she discovered exactly who she was – Emily the
intellectual, the friend, a poet with a voice.
The idea of the presentation of these songs in the specified format (see insert Recital
Program and Organization of Repertoire) is to recreate the character of Emily Dickinson in her
natural environment utilizing beautiful songs by American composers -works that were inspired
by her words. However, I would like to take this idea a step further by showing how her
beautifully complex personality and genius that could craft such texts will shine through even in
works created other artists (composers) as well as this stage show created by myself.
Adapting this room for the art song stage will present challenges, but I believe it is
possible to recreate the ambiance and environment of Emily’s room onstage by maintaining the
elements I like best about the space that I think are the most reflective of her character: the
openness, the natural light, and simplicity. My set will be an inspiration as opposed to a direct
recreation. I will not go as far as to craft a true “room” equipped with bed, bureau, woodstove,
and writing desk, but rather take parts of this overall image and present them in a way that
promotes openness to the audience, and integrates all necessary elements of art song
performance.
Stage Right: Seeing as the piano is an integral part of the performance of these songs, I would
like to incorporate it directly into the set. The crook of the piano will face inward towards stage
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action, but the pianist will still be situated in a way that is conducive to making contact with the
singer if the need arises.
Center Stage: Emily’s desk was the creative center of her room, and it was here that she
composed her exhaustive catalog of over 1,800 poems, as well as hundreds of letters that were an
important vehicle for relationships outside of her home. Placing a small writing table/desk,
equipped with a chair, inkwell, pen, oil lamp, and paper center stage will be symbolic of the
precedence of her writing in her life.
Desk/window ambiance that inspired Center Stage and Stage Left setting
Stage Left: Here, a window frame will be the main feature. This set piece will be comprised of a
window pane- cutout, mounted on a platform, and put on wheels. With this flexibility, the
performer will be able to operate this piece, moving it around the stage as she pleases, able to
stand to the side of it, look out of it, or be behind it if she so desires. As I adjust it periodically
throughout the music to tell Emily’s story, I hope to further communicate my interpretations of
the poetry, whether certain lines make me feel closed in or stifled, other make me feel pensive
and introspective, and others set me free.
Costuming: Although Dickinson spent much of her life wearing black due to quick successive
deaths of friends and family members, and one letter even suggests that her brother procured
colored fabrics for her while on business in Boston, the myth of Emily Dickinson’s consistently
white attire endured throughout her late life and after her death. Visitors recall seeing her in
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white, often in solely a vision fleeing up the stairs earning her the nickname “the myth”. The fact
that her family chose to bury her in white also gave credence to the moniker, and created an
indelible image for all posterity. I will adopt the same attire of a long-sleeved white gown, as I
think it represents not only her historical image, but also her desire to start all creative processes
with a blank canvas.
Restoration of Emily Dickinson’s White Housedress at Emily Dickinson Amherst Museum
Lighting: In favor of the natural light that permeated Emily’s bedroom I will not employ standard
lighting in the production, but instead use the natural light through the windows of Setnor
auditorium to create a simple, daytime setting.
Background: For background, I plan to use wooden paneling downstage of the organ and stage
left grand piano of Setnor auditorium. The paneling will be painted as if with a natural setting:
sky, grass, trees, and in the distance, the graveyard that Emily could see from her window. It will
be a simple and humble rendering of the natural New England landscape that often inspired
Emily to write.
The setting of Escape from Amherst will be akin to the environment where the poet
resided, but endowed with my own artistic impression of the environment of this poet lived in:
simple, with natural light, with a balance of colors between the furniture foreground and the
colorful background.
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Bibliography
"American Women and the American Character, What Is American in American Art, Excerpts from
"Essays Before a Sonata"" In American Personality and the Creative Arts, edited by Joel C.
Mickelson, 88-144, 155-163. Minneapolis, Minnesota: Burgess Publishing Company, 1969.
Benfey, Christopher E.G.. Emily Dickinson and the Problem of Others. Amherst, Massachusetts:
University of Massachusetts Press, 1984.
Brantley, Richard E. Emily Dickinson's Rich Conversation: Poetry, Philosophy, Science. New York, New York:
Palgrave MacMillan, 2013.
Friedberg, Ruth C., and Robyn Fisher. American Art Song and American Poetry. 2nd ed. Lanham, Maryland:
Scarecrow Press, 2012.
Johnson, Thomas H., and Theodora Ward, eds. The Letters of Emily Dickinson. Vol. 2. Cambridge,
Massachusetts: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1958.
Johnson, Thomas H., and Theodora Ward, eds. The Letters of Emily Dickinson. Vol. 3. Cambridge,
Massachusetts: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1958.
Johnson, Thomas H., ed. The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson. Boston, Massachusetts: Little, Brown
and Company, 1957.
Porter, David T. The Art of Emily Dickinson's Early Poetry. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University
Press, 1966.
Sewall, Richard B. The Life of Emily Dickinson. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press,
1974.
Taggard, Genevieve. The Life and Mind of Emily Dickinson. Genvieve Taggard, 1934.
Upton, William Treat. Art-Song in America: A Study in the Development of American Music. New York,
New York: Oliver Ditson Company, 1930.
Upton, William Treat. A Supplement to Art-Song in America 1930-1938. New York, New York: Oliver
Ditson Company, 1930.
Walsh, John Evangelist. Emily Dickinson in Love: The Case for Otis Lord. New Brunswick, New Jersey:
Rutgers University Press, 2012.
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Appendix
Enclosed please find audio and video recordings from December 5th, 2015 – the date of the
Escape from Amherst Concert Event. Please Enjoy.
https://soundcloud.com/maria-whitcomb/sets
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j_5gcdQJbc&list=PLpd2jlYrF1JZ7D5bGWYiUIvSvzgr7ecG1
If necessary please use the following login information to view all videos:
Email:mariakwhit@gmail.com
Password: Mus$c101